Association Study between Treatment Response of Amisulpride and Dopamine D3 Receptor Gene Polymorphisms

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between rs6280 and rs905568 genetic polymorphism of DRD3 gene and the treatment response of amisulpride. METHODS: After six weeks treatment of amisulpride, 125 schizophrenia patients were interviewed based on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S). The genotyping for rs6280 and rs905568 was performed using TaqMan single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping assay. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the frequency of genotype and allele of rs6280 between the responders and non-responders based on the total, positive, and general score of PANSS and CGI-S score. However, there was a significant association between this SNP and treatment response in the negative score of PANSS (chi2 = 5.23, p = 0.022). There was no significant association between rs905568 and the response in positive, negative, general, and total PANSS score and CGI-S score. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first positive association study between DRD3 gene and the treatment response of negative symptoms to amisulpride in Korean schizophrenia patients. A larger scale research on more SNP of the DRD3 gene will make a progress in the study of pharmacogenetics on the treatment response of the amisulpride.