Yu Younger W-Y, Yang Chih-Wei, Wu Hung-Chi, Tsai Shih-Jen, Hong Chen-Jee, Chen Ming-Chao, Chen Tai-Jui
Yu's Psychiatric Clinic, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Neuropsychobiology. 2005;52(3):118-21. doi: 10.1159/000087556. Epub 2005 Aug 17.
Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), a mitochondrial outer membrane enzyme, degrades biogenic amines including norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, which have been implicated in the expression of personality traits. We tested the associations between functional MAOA-uVNTR genetic variants and personality traits in a cohort of 370 healthy young Chinese females. Subjects who were homozygous for the 4-repeat allele of the MAOA-uVNTR gene tended to have a higher total score on the Harm Avoidance (HA) dimension of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) (p = 0.056), and had a significantly higher score on subdimension 4 of HA (p = 0.020) compared with the 3-repeat carriers. No significant association was demonstrated for MAOA-uVNTR polymorphism and the other two dimensions (Novelty Seeking and Reward Dependence) of TPQ. These results suggest that genetic variants of the MAOA gene may play a role in HA, but not in Novelty Seeking or Reward Dependence.
单胺氧化酶A（MAOA）是一种线粒体外膜酶，可降解包括去甲肾上腺素、多巴胺和5-羟色胺在内的生物胺，这些生物胺与人格特质的表达有关。我们在一个由370名健康中国年轻女性组成的队列中测试了功能性MAOA-uVNTR基因变异与人格特质之间的关联。MAOA-uVNTR基因4重复等位基因纯合的受试者在三维人格问卷（TPQ）的回避伤害（HA）维度上总分往往较高（p = 0.056），与3重复携带者相比，在HA子维度4上得分显著更高（p = 0.020）。未发现MAOA-uVNTR多态性与TPQ的其他两个维度（寻求新奇和奖励依赖）有显著关联。这些结果表明，MAOA基因的遗传变异可能在回避伤害中起作用，但在寻求新奇或奖励依赖中不起作用。
