Tumor suppressor gene TP53 is genetically associated with schizophrenia in the Chinese population

Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental disorder. The TP53 tumor suppressor gene, encoding a phosphoprotein, is a key element in maintaining genomic stability and cell apoptosis. Recently, reduced risk of cancer in patients of schizophrenia has been reported. Some evidence also suggests the possible implication of TP53 in neurodevelopment. In order to examine the role of the TP53 gene in the pathogenesis of schizophrenic disorders, we investigated the genetic association between a functional polymorphism rs1042522 and schizophrenia by sequencing the fragment covering 72Pro> Arg in 701 cases and 695 controls in this work. In addition, we studied two other SNPs rs2078486 and rs8064946 by allele-specific PCR in the same samples. Though rs1042522 and rs8064946 did not show positive association with schizophrenia, we did observe statistically significant differences on SNP rs2078486 ( P -value = 0.029; OR = 1.21; 95% CI 1.02–1.42) and on haplotype CAC ( P -value = 0.0068; OR = 1.36; 95% CI 1.09–1.70). These results demonstrated that TP53 might play a role in susceptibility to schizophrenia.