Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Genes located?

Look at this intriguing article from China. They seem to have found a genetic relationship between dopamine and stuttering. However, I am not geneticist, so I do not know exactly what the result means and whether the results are reliable or not. Maybe a reader can help us out?

Nan Fang Yi Ke Da Xue Xue Bao. 2009 Mar;29(3):375-80.

[Single nucleotide polymorphisms of DAT and DRD2 genes in Han Chinese population and their association with stuttering.]

Pan CH, Song LP, DU J, Lan J, Wu CM, Wu LJ, Lin L, Wang W.
Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.

OBJECTIVE:
To explore the correlations of dopamine transporter gene (DAT) and dopamine D(2) receptor gene (DRD2) to stuttering. METHODS: To examine the correlations of the 5 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in dopaminergic gene (C252T, C1804T, and C1820T in DAT gene, and T1054C and C1072T in DRD(2) gene) to stuttering in Han Chinese individuals, a case-control study involving 112 patients with stuttering and 112 gender-matched controls was carried out. Genotyping was performed by a combined approach using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and pyrosequencing.

RESULTS:
C1804T showed no polymorphism in either the patients or the control subjects and was therefore excluded from the following analysis. The C allele frequency at C1072T site was significantly higher, but T allele frequency significantly lower in the stuttering group than in the control group. The patients had significantly higher CC and lower CT genotype frequencies than the control group. There were no significant differences in the allelic frequencies of C252T, C1820T and T1054C between the patients and the controls, suggesting a Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium at these 3 loci. CONCLUSION: The presence of the C allele at C1072T in DRD(2) gene is associated with increased susceptibility to stuttering in Han Chinese, whereas the T allele provides protection against the onset of stuttering.

14 comments:

Greg said...

Geez Tom, nice find!

I'm curious to get some commentary as well. The abstract makes sense, but I don't have the background...

Greg said...

Hey Tom--can you fix the link?

Thanks...

Anonymous said...

-However, I am not geneticist

Why don't you become a geneticist or study genetics (google genetics)? You don't need a PhD in genetics to be a geneticist...

Tom Weidig said...

Actually genetics can be quite difficult, and I better rely on real experts...

I know where my limits are!

Greg: I took out the links.

Tom Weidig said...

Does anyone speak Chinese?? :-)

Greg said...

Tom--this looks like Chinese spam; check out the Babel Fish translation:

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Einar said...

Tom, looks like you got a troll, having fun to sabotage discussions on this blog, how about if you ban anonymous comments? I think people who don't have the balls to put their name below their comments, shouldn't allowed to publish them here.
Really enjoy following the blog, and I think it's by far the best available on the subject.

Tom Weidig said...

I keep them on, because I want everyone to be able to express their opinion.

But I do delete comments that are too insulting.

Anonymous said...

How can I read the entire article?

Dave

Anonymous said...

I've been looking for those jeans all day... So glad they found them!

Anonymous said...

Hey Tom,
I'm a stutterer who is majoring in molecular biology. To put this in layman's terms, in these two genes, there are switches in 5 base pairs of DNA. This Chinese team then researched the frequency of having these polymorphisms (mutations) and found that the frequency of having a mutation at one particular sight was much higher in stutterers. Looking to the future, this lab will obviously have to be re-assessed and then in the WAY WAY future, labs may be able to create medication to suppress these polymorphisms.

Tom Weidig said...

Thanks a lot for your comment.

I have a few more questions: do you mind sending me an email to tom dot weidig at gmail.com

Thx,
Tom

Unknown said...

Hi Tom,

The problem of this article is: It is published in a Chinese journal with very low scientific impact. China is not known to be the center of scientific innovation, but if this work would provide both significant and reliable information they should have find a better, international journal. Additionally, the article is written in Chinese, so we don`t have a chance to check the data.

I’m biochemist, but I work in a quite different field than genetics. I have learned to be very careful with such kind of papers.

Regards,
Reinhold

JZ said...

It seems that this group first published it in Chinese in a Chinese journal, then in Journal of Human Genetics.

ournal of Human Genetics advance online publication 10 July 2009; doi: 10.1038/jhg.2009.60
Association between dopaminergic genes (SLC6A3 and DRD2) and stuttering among Han Chinese

Jie Lan1,4, Manshu Song2,4, Chunhui Pan1, Guoqing Zhuang1, Youxin Wang2, Wenzhan Ma1, Qiaoyun Chu1, Qingxuan Lai1, Feng Xu1, Yanli Li1, Lixin Liu1 and Wei Wang1,2,3

1. 1Department of Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China
2. 2School of Public Health and Family Medicine, Capital Medical University, Beijing, PR China
3. 3School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

Correspondence: Professor W Wang, Department of Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No 19A Yue Quan Road, Beijing 100049, PR China. E-mails: wei6014@yahoo.com or wei6014@gucas.ac.cn

4These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received 11 April 2009; Revised 18 June 2009; Accepted 19 June 2009; Published online 10 July 2009.