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Abstract
Background: Considering current scientific evidence about the significant role of chronic low grade inflammation in the physiopathology of schizophrenia, it has been hypothesized that changes in pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interferon gamma may have a significant role in the predisposition to schizophrenia.
Aim: This study focuses on identifying whether the functional polymorphism of interferon gamma receptor 2 (IFNGR2) is a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia.
Methods: This study was conducted by the RFLP-PCR on a Tunisian population composed of 225 patients with different sub-types of schizophrenia and 166 controls.
Results: The IFNGR2 (Q64R) polymorphism analysis showed higher frequencies of minor homozygous genotype (RR) and allele (R) in all patients compared to controls (21.8% vs 10.2%; p = .006, OR = 2.54) and (44% vs 34.9%; p = .01; OR = 1.46), respectively. This correlation was confirmed only for males. This study also noted a significant increase of the mutated homozygous (RR) genotype and (R) allele frequencies of IFNGR2 in paranoid schizophrenics compared to controls (31.4% vs 10.2%; p = .001; OR = 3.34 and 47.2% vs 34.9%; p = .009; OR = 1.66, respectively). This increase remains significant after using binary logistic regression to eliminate confounding factors such as age and sex. Additionally, carriers of RR genotype have significant lower scores on the Scale of Assessment of Positive (SAPS) and negative (SANS) symptoms comparatively to the carrier of the QQ + QR genotypes, suggesting that the R recessive allele carriers could have milder symptoms.
Conclusion: The IFNGR2Q64R polymorphism is correlated with male sex and paranoid schizophrenia. It is suggested that a chronic neuroinflammation may predispose to the paranoid schizophrenia development in men.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the staff of the Department of Psychiatry of the CHU F Bourguiba of Monastir for providing samples and clinical information. We are grateful to Sarra Chaded for her assistance with the linguistic part of this paper.
Disclosure statement
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
Funding
This work was supported by: The Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Technology of Tunisia.