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  • Original Research Article
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Biased paternal transmission of SNAP-25 risk alleles in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Molecular Psychiatry volume 8, pages 309–315 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common childhood psychiatric disorder, affecting 5–10% of school-age children. Although the biological basis of this disorder is unknown, twin and family studies provide strong evidence that ADHD has a genetic basis involving multiple genes. A previous study found an association between ADHD and two polymorphisms in the 3′ untranslated region (UTR) of SNAP-25, a gene encoding a synaptic vesicle docking protein known to play a role in the hyperactivity observed in the Coloboma mouse strain. In this paper, we test biased transmission of the 3′ UTR SNAP-25 haplotype using a larger ADHD sample of 113 families with 207 affected children. Using the transmission disequilibrium test (TDT), we found a trend consistent with biased transmission of the TC haplotype of SNAP-25 in all transmissions and detected a significant distortion (P=0.027) when paternal transmissions were evaluated.

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Acknowledgements

We thank LJL Biosystems for a generous loan of their LJL Analyst HT instrument for fluorescence polarization measurement. We thank Lori Crawford for genomic DNA sample preparations, assistance in developing the genotyping assay, and critical assessment of this manuscript. We thank all the families that participated in the research. We thank Tae Kim, Laura Combs, Melissa Del Homme and Leah Pressman for their work in data collection. VK was supported by the USPHS National Research Service Award GM07104. The work was supported by NIH Grant RO1 MH58277 to SLS and by UC-BioSTAR Grant B990817 to SFN.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Genetics, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

    V Kustanovich, B Merriman & S F Nelson

  2. Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics, UCLA School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

    J McGough, J T McCracken, S L Smalley & S F Nelson

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

    J McGough, J T McCracken, S L Smalley & S F Nelson

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  1. V Kustanovich
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Correspondence to S F Nelson.

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Kustanovich, V., Merriman, B., McGough, J. et al. Biased paternal transmission of SNAP-25 risk alleles in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Mol Psychiatry 8, 309–315 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001247

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