The present study examined the effects of a functional polymorphism at IL1B gene promoter (-511C/T; rs16944) on brain correlates of working memory performance in schizophrenia.
The combined allele-wise odds ratio (OR) for schizophrenia of the rs16944 (IL1B gene; T-511C) polymorphism was 0.86 (95% CI: 0.77to 0.96).When applying stratified analysis to this polymorphism, the pooled allele-wise OR was 0.88 (95% CI, 0.79 to 0.97) in 10 population-based studies and 0.85 (95% CI: 0.73 to 0.99) in Caucasian samples.
However, meta-analysis of our data combined with previously published association studies of rs16944 (IL1beta -511) suggests that the C allele confers modest risk for schizophrenia among individuals reporting Caucasian ancestry, but not Asians (Caucasians, n=819 cases, 1292 controls; p=0.0013, OR=1.24, 95% CI 1.09, 1.41).