Lack of Association between Human µ-Opioid Receptor (<em>OPRM1</em>) Gene Polymorphisms and Heroin Addiction in A Sample of Southeast Iranian Population

• Main Authors: Mansour Shakiba, Mohammad Hashemi, Zahra Rahbari, Salah Mahdar, Hiva Danesh, Fatemeh Bizhani, Gholamreza Bahari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Institute of Mathematical Sciences 2017-06-01
• Series: AIMS Medical Science
• Subjects: OPRM1; polymorphism; addiction; heroin
• Online Access: http://www.aimspress.com/medicalScience/article/1479/fulltext.html

It has been proposed that genetic factors account for 30%–50% of the risk for cocaine and heroin addiction. The present study was aimed to find out the impact of µ-opioid receptor gene (<em>OPRM1</em>) rs1799971 A &gt; G and rs9479757 polymorphisms on heroin dependence in a sample of southeast Iranian population. This case-control study was done on 123 heroin addicts and 140 non-addicts Iranian male. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood cells using salting out method. Genotyping of <em>OPRM1</em> rs1799971 and rs9479757 polymorphisms were performed using PCR-RFLP method. Overall, our results did not support an association between <em>OPRM1</em> variants and risk of heroin dependence in a sample of southeast Iranian population. Further studies with larges sample sizes and different ethnicities are required to validate our findings.