Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Relationship Between Serotonin Transporter Gene Polymorphisms And Platelet Serotonin Transporter Sites Among African-American Cocaine-Dependent Individuals And Healthy Volunteers., Ashwin A. Patkar, Wade H. Berrettini, Paolo Mannelli, Raman Gopalakrishnan, Margret R. Hoehe, Louai Bilal, Stephen Weinstein, Michael J. Vergare

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Faculty Papers

Alterations in the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) have been implicated in a variety of psychiatric disorders including cocaine dependence. A polymorphism in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) appears to influence the expression of 5-HTT in human cell lines. We investigated whether 5-HTTLPR variants were related to differences in measures of platelet 5-HTT sites in cocaine-dependent patients and healthy volunteers (controls). Polymerase chain reaction-based genotyping of a 44 base pair insertion/deletion polymorphism in 5-HTTLPR was performed in 138 cocaine-dependent African-American subjects and 60 African-American controls. This yielded a short (S) and a long (L) allele. Platelet 5-HTT sites …