Association between the NOTCH4 gene rs3131296 polymorphism with schizophrenia risk in the Chinese Zhuang population and Chinese Han population

Background: Schizophrenia (SZ) is a common severe psychiatric disorder and a complex polygenic inherited disease that has not yet been fully interpreted. Heredity was proven to play an important role in the development of SZ. The association between the NOTCH4 gene rs3131296 polymorphism and SZ was reported to reach significance at the genome-wide level; therefore, it is necessary to replicate this association in other different populations. Methods: To evaluate the association of the NOTCH4 gene rs3131296 polymorphism with the risk for SZ, and to explore whether a significant association could be replicated in different ethnic groups of China, we conducted this case-control study on 282 SZ cases (188 Han and 94 Zhuang) and 282 controls (188 Han and 94 Zhuang) among the Chinese Zhuang and Han populations. Results: The results showed no statistically significant difference in the genotype or allele frequencies of the NOTCH4 gene variant rs3131296 between SZ patients and healthy controls in either the Zhuang or Han samples (p > 0.05). In addition, no significant difference was found in genotype or allele frequencies of the NOTCH4 gene variant rs3131296 between cases and controls in the combined samples including Zhuang and Han samples. Conclusions: Our study failed to replicate the significant association between the NOTCH4 gene rs3131296 polymorphism and the risk for SZ.