apoe and cpt1-a promoter methylation and expression profiles in patients with schizophrenia

background apo-lipoprotein e (apoe) and carnitine palmitoyltransferase1-a (cpt1-a) genes are well known to be involved in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia but regarding their cpg island methylation status data is sparse. objectives the aims of the current study were to highlight the effect of the promoter “hypermethylation” in the development of scz. patients and methods genomic dna was extracted from peripheral blood of 80 patients with schizophrenia and 71 healthy controls. the methylation pattern was studied using methylation-specific pcr. rna expression analysis was performed on extracted rna from blood samples of patients suffering from schizophrenia (n = 17) and healthy controls (n = 17). results frequency of the apoe and cpt1-a methylation show insignificant relationship between cases and controls. estimates of relative gene expression revealed no significant statistical association of the apoe and cpt1-a genes between schizophrenic patients and healthy controls. conclusions this is the first evidence regarding apoe and cpt1-a gene methylation and their expression profile related to risk of schizophrenia which indicate no significant association between the apoe and cpt1-a gene methylation and development of schizophrenia.