Significant association of the FZD3 gene with schizophrenia in Chinese Han population had been reported previously, however, this finding could not be confirmed in subsequent studies investigating other populations. To understand the role of the FZD3 gene in schizophrenia further, here we attempted to replicate this finding in Chinese Va schizophrenic subjects which is one of the ethnic minorities in China. Five single nucleotide polymorphisms in the FZD3 gene had been genotyped by the polymerase chain reaction-based restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis based on the previous schizophrenic studies in 81 Va schizophrenic patients and 210 Va healthy subjects. Subsequently, associations for single markers as well as haplotypes were tested. There was a significant difference between patients and controls in the frequencies of the genotype or allele in rs2241802. Haplotype analyses revealed significant differences in patients and control subjects at rs2241802-rs2323019-rs352203 (global χ(2)=176.23, the degree of freedom=7, permutation p<0.0001). There were still the same significant differences for A-G-C and G-A-T haplotypes between the two groups after Bonferroni's correction. The present and previous findings indicated that genetic variants of the FZD3 gene may affect susceptibility to schizophrenia in Chinese Han and Va populations.
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