Abstract
BACKGROUND: In view of previous conflicting findings, this meta-analysis was performed to comprehensively determine the overall strength of associations between brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) genetic polymorphism Val66Met and susceptibility to bipolar disorders (BPD). METHODS: Literatures published and cited in Pubmed and Wanfang Data was searched with terms of 'Val66Met', 'G196A', 'rs6265', 'BDNF', 'association', and 'bipolar disorder' up to March 2014. All original case-control association studies were meta-analyzed with a pooled OR to estimate the risk and 95% confidence interval (CI) to reflect the magnitude of variance. RESULTS: Twenty-one case-control association studies met our criteria for the meta-analysis. Overall, there was no significant difference in allelic distribution of Val66Met polymorphism between patients and controls with a pooled OR = 1.03 (95% CI 0.98, 1.08) although there was a trend towards association between Val66Met polymorphism and BPD in Caucasians with an OR of 1.08 (95% CI 1.00, 1.16). However, subgroup analyses showed that there was a significant association of Val allele with decreased disease susceptibility for bipolar disorder type II with a pooled OR of 0.88 (95% CI 0.78, 0.99). CONCLUSIONS: There is no compelling evidence to supportVal66Met polymorphism in BDNF gene playing an important role in the susceptibility to BPD across different ethnicities.