Serotonin transporter polymorphisms and panic disorder
-
* Corresponding author: Jürgen Deckert Deckert_J@klinik.uni-wuerzburg.de
1 Institute of Human Genetics, University of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Str. 25, 53127 Bonn, Germany
2 Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, Füchsleinstrasse 15, 97080 Würzburg, Germany
Genome Med 2010, 2:40 doi:10.1186/gm161
Published: 29 June 2010Abstract
Panic disorder (PD) is the most common anxiety disorder. Although PD seems to occur unprovoked and the underlying etiology is not well understood, studies have consistently shown that genetic factors explain approximately 48% of the variance. Moreover, family and twin studies support the view that the majority of PD cases have a complex genetic basis. Promising findings have most recently implicated the polymorphisms at the 3' end of the serotonin transporter gene SLC6A4 as PD risk variants. If independent studies can replicate the observed association with the SLC6A4 variants and their functional effects on gene expression, this would have a great impact on our understanding of the disease pathophysiology and would provide opportunities to investigate genotype-phenotype correlations.