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Review
. 2021 Sep 27;13(9):e18311.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.18311. eCollection 2021 Sep.

Effect of Catechol-O-Methyltransferase Genotype Polymorphism on Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders: Progressing Towards Personalized Medicine

Kosha Srivastava  1 , Olive Ochuba  2 , Jasmine K Sandhu  3 , Tasnim Alkayyali  4 , Sheila W Ruo  5 , Ahsan Waqar  6 , Ashish Jain  2 , Christine Joseph  7 , Sujan Poudel  8   9
Affiliations
Review

Effect of Catechol-O-Methyltransferase Genotype Polymorphism on Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders: Progressing Towards Personalized Medicine

Kosha Srivastava et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

Different polymorphisms of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene affect the COMT enzyme activity. The COMT enzyme plays a major role in the pathophysiology of various neurological and psychiatric disorders. This review article aims to discuss what recent research has discovered about the association of COMT genotype polymorphism with neurological and psychiatric disorders and the scope for the knowledge to be applied for advancement in therapeutics. We searched PubMed and Google Scholar databases and found 1656 articles. We included observational studies, clinical trials, and meta-analyses in the English language published between 2019 and 2021. We screened the articles based on the title and the abstract and found 26 relevant articles. Diseases or conditions studied primarily were schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, substance use, and depression. This article highlights how genetics influences the susceptibility of an individual to neurological and psychiatric diseases and the variations in the specific symptoms of those diseases. The review showed that the variability in individual response to therapeutic interventions stems from the gene level. This knowledge can contribute towards the dawn of a new era of personalized medicine.

Keywords: catechol-o-methyltransferase; comt gene; comt genotype polymorphism; neurological disorders; psychiatric disorders.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Role of catechol-O-methyltransferase in catecholamine metabolism
Original diagram showing the metabolism of catecholamine by the catechol-o-methyltransferase enzyme.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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