ABSTRACT
Abnormalities in monoamine neurotransmission have been implicated in the pathogenesis of alcoholism, mood disorders and schizophrenia. Murine norepinephrine transporter gene (NET) has been mapped to a region on chromosome 8 where a quantitative trait locus for ethanol sensitivity. Therefore we tested whether norepinephrine transporter (NET) gene variants confer susceptibility to either alcohol dependence or severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms. There is a highly polymorphic silent G1287A mutation in the NET gene. In our study 157 alcoholics and 185 healthy unrelated matched control subjects were analyzed for a silent G1287A mutation. No significant differences in allele and genotype distribution between control subjects f(A)=0.33 and alcoholics f(A)=0.29 were found. No significant results were found in more homogenous subgroups, i.e. alcoholics with severe alcohol withdrawal (seizures, delirium), early onset age<26 nor dependent patients with positive familial history of alcoholism. These results suggest that the NET gene polymorphism in exon 9 accession number: mRNA: NM_001043, genomic contig.: NT_019610, is unlikely to be involved in the susceptibility to alcoholism and severe alcohol withdrawal.
