All patients were descended from at least two generations of Caucasians, and were interviewed by trained psychiatrists or psychologists using the French version of the Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies (DIGS) or the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) (Nurnberger et al. 1994; Preisig et al. 1999). Almost all bipolar

patients were diagnosed as BD-I, except for subjects identified as BP-II (98% of BP-I). Controls were recruited from blood donors in Geneva Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Hospitals (Geneva, Switzerland) and met the criteria of the DIGS questionnaire for their inclusion. The mean age (±SD) was 35 ± 10, 42 ± 11, and 44 ± 12 years, for SZ, BD, and Controls, respectively. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical The female composition was 40%, 50%, and 44%, for SZ, BD, and Controls, respectively. Table 1 Demographic data Genotyping DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes by using of the Nucleon BACC 2 kit (Amersham Biosciences, GE Healthcare, Glatbrugg, Switzerland). The -432C>T (rs3813065) was genotyped by restriction find more digestion with the enzyme SwaI as described by Stopkova et al. (2004). The dinucleotide repeat polymorphism was identified Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical by the UCSC genome browser (March 2006). This microsatellite is located on chromosome 18,

between 939, 492, 926–939, 492, 962 bp. This genetic variant was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on a 96-well plate thermal cycler (Biometra, Goettingen, Germany). The following primers were used: 5′-ACCTTTTCCTACTTCAATTCACA-3′ type forward and 5′-TCCTAGAGAAGAGGTATGATGATGG-3′ Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical type reverse. PCR reaction was carried out with 100 ng of genomic DNA using Hot Star Taq DNA polymerase (Eurobio, Brunschwig, Basel, Switzerland) in a 25 mL reaction mix containing 1× buffer (Tris-Cl, KCl, (NH4)2SO4, 15 mM MgCl2; pH 8.7), 0.10 mM dNTPs, 0.03 mM MgCl2,

0.02 mM of each primer, 1U Taq polymerase. Amplification conditions were as follows: 95°C for 5 Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical min, 25 cycles of 92°C for 30 sec, 60°C for 30 sec, and 72°C for 30 sec. PCR products were analyzed by electrophoresis on a 10% polyacrylamide gel at 250 V for 150 min and visualized with ethidium bromide. Allele (CA)11 was 88 bp, allele (CA)12 was 90 bp, allele (CA)13 was 92 bp, allele (CA)14 was 94 bp, allele (CA)16 was 98 bp, allele (CA)17 was 100 bp, and allele (CA)18 was 102 bp. The Oxymatrine SNP rs8095411 was identified by the Ensembl data bank and explored by high-resolution melt (HRM) assay using a Rotor-Gene 6000 instrument (Corbett Life Science, Australia). Amplicon sequence was analyzed by the Poland melting software program to predict melting behavior (http://www.biophys.uni-duesseldorf.de/local/POLAND//poland.html). The secondary structures were checked by DINAMelt (http://mfold.rna.albany.edu/?q = DINAMelt/Two-state-folding). The following primers were used: 5′-GAGCCTGCAAAAACTCAACA-3′ type forward and 5′-AACCCAGCTGTCAGGGAATA-3′ type reverse.