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David E Comings

Publications and source records attributed to David E Comings.

3 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Association of the muscarinic cholinergic 2 receptor (CHRM2) gene with major depression in women.

Cholinergic neurons have been implicated in depression and in the disorders of REM sleep in depression. We examined a common A-> T 1890 polymorphism in the 3' UTR of the cholinergic muscarinic receptor 2 (CHRM2) gene. There was a significant increase in the frequency of 11 homozygotes in 126 women with major depression (43.7%) compared to 304 women without major depression (25.7%), P =.001. There was no increase in the frequency of 11 homozygotes in 52 men with depression (26.9%) compared to 278 men without depression (27.7%). Regression analysis, scoring subjects with the 11 genotype as 1, and those with other genotypes as 0, showed that in women r(2) =.030, F = 13.37, P =.0003. By contrast, in men r(2) =.00001, F = 0.002, P =.96. These results are consistent with a gender-specific role of the CHRM2 gene in depression in women.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Association between the phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase gene and multiple sclerosis.

Phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PNMT), the terminal enzyme of the catecholamine biosynthesis pathway, catalyzes the conversion of norepinephrine (NE) to epinephrine (EPI). PNMT is a candidate gene for multiple sclerosis (MS) for two reasons. PNMT is known to map to a region identified in two genome screens for MS and it directly regulates the amounts of NE and EPI, both of which play a significant role in the modulation of the innate immune response. The frequencies of two promoter polymorphisms of the PNMT gene showed genetic association in a case-control study of 108 patients with MS and 774 ethnically and age-matched control subjects. In subjects with MS, significant differences in the frequency of the GG genotype at the G-387A marker and the AA genotype at the G-182A marker were observed. Additionally, when both markers were combined and evaluated, highly significant differences between the polymorphism distributions in patients with MS and control subjects were detected. The data suggest that these promoter polymorphisms of the PNMT gene, both independently and cumulatively, show association with MS.

Adult↗