• Sumbal Sarwar, ShabanaDepartment of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan, 54590., and Shahida Hasnain.
• Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan, 54590.
• Afr Health Sci. 2021 Mar 1; 21 (1): 180-188.

BackgroundHuman behavioral traits are known to be significantly heritable. Certain individuals have a greater tendency of negative behavioral aspects including aggression. The quest to identify tunderlying genetic causes has led to identification of a number of genetic markers, one of them is the monoamine oxidase-A (MAO-A) gene.ObjectiveWe aimed to genotype a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTRs) in the promoter region and a functional SNP within this gene (T941G, dbSNP ID: rs6323) in the recruited cohort of 482 subjects.MethodsAfter DNA isolation, genotyping was done by PCR-RFLP and the results were confirmed by sequencing.ResultsFor VNTRs, the results showed, highest frequency of 3.5 repeats in males and 4 repeats in females in the promoter region. The genotype frequencies for the SNP in cases were GG=16.3%, TG=20.6% and TT=63.1%, while in controls, the frequencies were GG=12.7%, TG=6.3%, and TT=81.0%. The allele frequencies were significantly different between cases and controls (p=0.015; OR=1.51; CI=1.085-2.102).ConclusionThe selected VNTR and SNP appeared to be significantly associated with aggression. These VNTRs and SNP have not been studied previously in the Pakistani population, hence they represent a unique ethnic group. These results, however, would have to be replicated in larger cohorts.© 2021 Sarwar S et al.

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