Brief report Psychopathological features of obsessive–compulsive disorder in an Italian family with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome not linked to the SLITRK1 gene Massimo Pasquini a, ⁎ , Giovanni Fabbrini b , Isabella Berardelli a , Vincenzo Bonifati c , Massimo Biondi a , Alfredo Berardelli b a Department of Psychiatric Science and Psychological Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy b Department of Neurological Sciences and Neuromed Institute, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy c Department of Clinical Genetics, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Received 9 October 2007; received in revised form 19 December 2007; accepted 28 February 2008 Abstract We report the psychopathological features in a large Italian family with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome not linked to the SLITRK1 gene. Of the 23 living family members, 14 were evaluated using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, the Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale, the Clinical Global Impression and the Global Assessment of Functioning scale. Ten patients were found to have obsessive–compulsive disorder in which tic-like compulsions predominated. The distinctive feature of this family is the high frequency of obsessive–compulsive disorder with various clinical phenotypes. © 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Gilles de la Tourette; Obsessive–compulsive disorder; Italian family; SLITRK1 gene; Clinical features 1. Introduction Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is frequently associated with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) (Pauls et al., 1986; Miguel et al., 1995; Eapen et al., 1997; Rosario-Campos et al., 2005; Diniz et al., 2006), and several studies have highlighted a common genetic basis for OCD and GTS (Grados et al., 2001; Verkerk et al., 2006). Only a few reports have described the OCD phenotype in large GTS pedigrees (Kurlan et al., 1986; McMahon et al., 1996; Kano et al., 2001; Verkerk et al., 2006), but the non-homogeneous study methods used left the clinical phenotype and severity of OCD in GTS unclear. The aim of the present report was to describe the clinical features of the OCD phenotype in a large Italian family with GTS not linked to the SLITRK1 gene, a gene recently described in patients with GTS. The neu- rological and genetic features of this family have been described elsewhere (Fabbrini et al., 2007). We sought to determine whether a clinical OCD subtype exists in this family. Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Psychiatry Research 161 (2008) 109 – 111 www.elsevier.com/locate/psychres ⁎ Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatric Science and Psychological Medicine, “La Sapienza”, University of Rome, Viale dell'Università 30, 00185, Rome, Italy. Tel.: +39 06 49914591; fax: +39 06 4454765. E-mail address: massimo.pasquini@uniroma1.it (M. Pasquini). 0165-1781/$ - see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2008.02.012