MIT, the haplotype frequencies of the five SNPs in the COMT region were estimated. 8 No significant transmission distortion of the seven common haplotypes has been found. (The global P value for the haplotype of all five markers was 0.19, data not shown.)COMT is a promising candidate gene for a number of neurologic disorders that involve noradrenergic or dopaminergic systems. As reviewed in the introduction there have been conflicting reports in the literature regarding COMT's association with schizophrenia susceptibility, however it is possible that many of these can be attributed to small and/or heterogeneous case/control samples. To further test the possible implication of COMT in the aetiology of schizophrenia, we used transmission distortion analysis in family trios (implemented by the ETDT and TRANSMIT programs), to fine-map the COMT locus and to attempt to replicate the findings of Li et al 1 and Egan et al. 2 Five SNP markers were genotyped and analysed both individually and as haplotype in 166 family trios from the Han Chinese population. Significant linkage disequilibrium (P Ͻ 0.000001) was found between the majority of SNP markers (8/10 pairwise combinations). The linkage disequilibrium relationship between the polymorphisms was consistent with earlier observations in the Han Chinese. 1 No preferential transmission of any allele or haplotype was detected for all of the polymorphisms studied. Thus, our analysis did not suggest an association between the COMT gene and susceptibility to schizophrenia, consistent with other recent findings. 9 Therefore, it appears unlikely that the COMT plays a major role in the aetiology of schizophrenia. However, we cannot exclude COMT from playing a small or minor role in the aetiology of the disorder and further studies using larger numbers of samples will be necessary to clarify this question.

A complete linkage disequilibrium between the SNP (SNP B) in BCDO2 gene and the yellow skin phenotype in European domestic chicken has been reported. Here, we genotyped the reported SNPs (SNP A, SNP B, and SNP C) of the BCDO2 gene in 183 Chinese Indigenous chickens from 11 breeds/populations, including 57 yellow, 17 white, and 109 black skin chickens. The frequency of all three SNPs were significantly different between yellow and white skin chickens (p<0.01). In black skin chickens, a high frequency of the heterozygous genotype (AG) in SNP A (0.51) and SNP B (0.48) was observed. A total of three haplotypes (AAA, AGA, and GAA) from these three SNPs were obtained. Frequencies of the proposed yellow skin-associated haplotype AGA in yellow skin, white skin, and black skin chickens were 0.81, 0.35, and 0.56, respectively. The results showed that the yellow skin phenotype of the evaluated birds has not been under selection, and that the BCDO2 gene in black skin chickens, evolutionally may undergo a transition phase from yellow to white skin chicken. We concluded that, the SNPs of BCDO2 gene not only can be used to determine whether the chicken was subjected to selection, but may also be used as a marker when selecting for the preferred skin color in chicken breeding programs.