CACNA1C, schizophrenia and major depressive disorder in the Han Chinese population

Background Common psychiatric disorders are highly heritable, indicating that genetic factors play an important role in their aetiology. The CACNA1C gene, which codes for subunit alpha-1C of the Cav1.2 voltage-dependent L-type calcium channel, has been consistently found to be the shared risk gene for several kinds of mental disorder. Aims To investigate whether CACNA1C is a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder in the Han Chinese population. Method We carried out a case-control study of 1235 patients with schizophrenia, 1045 with major depressive disorder and 1235 healthy controls. A tag single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1006737 along with another 10 tag SNPs in the CACNA1C gene were genotyped in all samples. Results We found that rs1006737 was associated with both schizophrenia (P-allele = 0.0014, P-genotype = 0.006, odds ratio (OR)= 1.384, 95% Cl 1.134-1.690) and major depressive disorder (P-allele = 0.0007, Pgenotype=0.003, OR= 1.425, 95% Cl 1.160-1.752). Conclusions Our findings support CACNA1C being a risk gene for both schizophrenia and major depressive disorder in the Han Chinese population.