Abstract
1. Central serotonergic dysfunction and genetic factors are associated with suicidal behavior in psychiatric patients. The goal of this study was to examine the association between the 5-HT2A gene polymorphism (102T/C) and suicide in a sample of Brazilian psychiatric inpatients. 2. We studied 225 subjects. Genotypic frequencies were obtained after DNA extraction and the region of 5-HT2A/T102C containing the polymorphic site amplified by the polymerase chain reaction and digested with the restriction enzyme HpaII. 3. No differences were found between patients with and without suicide attempt history. Patients with a history of severe suicide attempts also did not exhibit different genotypic frequencies when compared with patients without a suicide attempt history. 4. These results suggest that the 5HT2A gene polymorphism (102T/C) may not be involved in the genetic susceptibility to suicidal behavior.