Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Apr;52(2):456-462.
doi: 10.55730/1300-0144.5333. Epub 2022 Apr 14.

Determination of the relationship between major histocompatibility complex alleles and childhood onset obsessive-compulsive disorder

Ümit Lüleyap  1 , Gökhan Karacaoğlan  1 , Ayşegül Yolga Tahiroğlu  2 , Akgün Yaman  3 , Perçin Pazarcı  1 , Salih Çetiner  4 , Davut Alptekin  1 , Yaşar Sertdemir  5 , Gülşah Evyapan  1 , Doğa Lüleyap  6
Affiliations

Determination of the relationship between major histocompatibility complex alleles and childhood onset obsessive-compulsive disorder

Ümit Lüleyap et al. Turk J Med Sci. 2022 Apr.

Abstract

Background: About half of the cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) occurring in childhood/adolescence occur with similar symptoms both in childhood and adulthood. Immunologic stress is claimed to be a risk factor in the etiology of childhood onset OCD. Our aim was to elucidate the relationship between childhood onset OCD risk and MHC complex I and II alleles.

Methods: MHC alleles of 49 OCD children together with 277 healthy children (aged 4-12) were analyzed by PCR. Results were evaluated by using univariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis.

Results: A2, A29, C4, DRB3.1, and DRB1*16 alleles were found to increase the risk of OCD.

Discussion: The relationship found between DRB locus and OCD in this study was remarkable since there have been studies on different populations reporting similar relationship between DRB locus and rheumatoid arthritis, which is also an AID. MHC class I and class II alleles were found to increase the risk of OCD in our study, which serves as a suitable model for studies suggesting that MHC genes do not work completely independently. Even though the MHC class I and II genes are considered to have different roles in immune response, in fact they tend to work in cooperation. As in previous studies on AIDs, there is a linear relationship between MHC class II alleles and OCD risk.

Keywords: Autoimmunity; MHC; OCD; children; neuropsychiatric disorders.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

Authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

References

    1. Boileau B. A review of obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and adolescents. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. 2011;13(4):401–411. doi: 10.31887/DCNS.2011.13.4/bboileau. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Abramowitz JS, McKay D, Taylor S. Obsessive-compulsive disorder : subtypes and spectrum conditions. 1st ed. Boston, MA, USA: Elsevier; 2008.
    1. American Psychiatric Association. DSM-5 Task Force. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders : DSM-5. 5th ed. Washington, D.C., USA: American Psychiatric Association; 2013.
    1. Khramtsova EA, Heldman R, Derks EM, Yu D, Davis LK, et al. Sex differences in the genetic architecture of obsessive-compulsive disorder. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics. 2019;180(6):351–364. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.b.32687. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sadock BJ, Sadock VA, Ruiz P, Kaplan HI. Kaplan & Sadock’s comprehensive textbook of psychiatry. 9th ed. Philadelphia, PA, USA: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2009.