Abstract
Genetic studies of delinquent and criminal behavior are rare in spite of the wide recognition that individuals may differ in their propensity for delinquency and criminality. Using 2524 participants in Add Health in the United States, the present study demonstrates a link between the rare 2 repeat of the 30-bp VNTR in the MAOA gene and much higher levels of self-reported serious and violent delinquency. The evidence is based on a statistical association analysis and a functional analysis of MAOA promoter activity using two human brain-derived cell lines: neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y and human glioblastoma 1242-MG. The association analysis shows that men with a 2R report a level of serious delinquency and violent delinquency in adolescence and young adulthood that were about twice (CI: (0.21, 3.24), P=0.025; and CI: (0.37, 2.5), P=0.008 for serious and violent delinquency, respectively) as high as those for participants with the other variants. The results for women are similar, but weaker. In the functional analysis, the 2 repeat exhibits much lower levels of promoter activity than the 3 or 4 repeat.
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Acknowledgements
This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J Richard Udry, Peter S Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by the Grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth/contract.html). Special acknowledgment is due to Andrew Smolen and John K Hewitt of the Institute for Behavior Genetics, University of Colorado for DNA isolation and genotyping. We gratefully acknowledge grant supports from NIH, P01-HD31921 to Add Health; R03 HD042490-02 and R03 HD053385-01 to Guang Guo; and from NSF, SES-0210389 to Guang Guo.
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Guo, G., Ou, XM., Roettger, M. et al. The VNTR 2 repeat in MAOA and delinquent behavior in adolescence and young adulthood: associations and MAOA promoter activity. Eur J Hum Genet 16, 626–634 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201999
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201999
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