Abstract: Association between serotonin transporter gene polymorphism and chronic fatigue syndrome

Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2003 Nov 14;311(2):264-6.

Narita M, Nishigami N, Narita N, Yamaguti K, Okado N, Watanabe Y, Kuratsune H.

Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tennoudai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305-8575, Ibaraki, Japan

Interaction between the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis and the serotonergic system is thought to be disrupted in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients. We examined a serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene promoter polymorphism, which affects the transcriptional efficiency of 5-HTT, in 78 CFS patients using PCR amplification of the blood genomic DNA. A significant increase of longer (L and XL) alleic variants was found in the CFS patients compared to the controls both by the genotype-wise and the allele-wise analyses (both p<0.05, by chi(2) test and Fisher's exact test). Attenuated concentration of extracellular serotonin due to longer variants may cause higher susceptibility to CFS.

PMID: 14592408 [PubMed – in process]