Lack of association between microRNA-137 SNP rs1625579 and schizophrenia in a replication study of Han Chinese.

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a common, complex and severe psychiatric disorder associated with many different genetic and environmental risk factors. A recent genome-wide association study identified a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, rs1625579) in microRNA-137 (miR-137) as a possible susceptibility locus for SCZ. Hoping to validate this finding, we conducted a case-control study of the Han Chinese population, with 506 SCZ cases and 522 healthy controls, using the Ligase detection reaction-polymerase chain reaction method to genotype the polymorphism rs1625579 in the miR-137 gene. However, we found no significant difference (P > 0.05) in either allele or genotype frequency in this SNP between patients and controls. In addition, a meta-analysis indicated that the 'T' allele of SNP rs1625579 was not associated with susceptibility to SCZ in Han Chinese populations (pooled OR 1.087, 95 % CI 0.847-1.396, P = 0.512). Thus, these results do not support the previous finding suggesting further replication studies using a large-scale association analysis that should be warranted in Han Chinese populations.