Athletic performance is associated with many environmental factors such as inborn genetic factors, nutrition, psychological factors, and education. We aimed to analyze the brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) rs6265 polymorphism, which is an important genetic marker related to psychological factors, in 21 professional female volleyball players and compare it with the control group. Genotyping was assessed by Real-time PCR technique. BDNF rs6265 polymorphism genotypes were calculated as 72% and 28% for GG and GA in volleyball players, respectively. No AA genotype was detected. In the control group, the GG, GA and AA genotype percentages were calculated as 57.8, 36.3 and 5.9, respectively. In the allelic distribution, the percentages in the athlete group were calculated as 86% (36) for the G allele and 14% (6) for the A allele, respectively. In the control group, for the G and A alleles, respectively; it was 76.25% and 23.75%. No statistical significance was found in terms of both genotype distribution (p = 0.407) and allelic frequency distribution (p = 0.218). Our results were in line with data indicating the stress and anxiety-related nature of professional volleyball players. More studies with more athletes and more groups of athletes are needed to understand the effect of these parameters on volleyball players.

We aimed to determine the genotype and allele distributions of the serotonin transporter protein gene (SLC6A4) promoter L/S polymorphism in volleyball players and compare it with the previous studies in the literature in this study. For this purpose, 21 volleyball players participated in our study. Genotyping was performed by PCR after DNAs were isolated from buccal cells. The literature review has been done in Google Scholar and PUBMED databases with the keywords and combinations of “sports, athletes, genetics, SLC6A4, sports genetics, polymorphism”. In our cohort, LL, LS and SS genotypes were found in numbers and percentages as 10 (48%), 7 (33%) and 4 (19%), respectively. The respective L and S allele count numbers and percentages were 27 (64%) and 15 (36%). 9 different studies matched our criteria and compared with our findings with literature review. As a result, the low percentage of SS genotype in terms of genotype distribution was common with the previous studies and our findings. The S allele percentage was higher than our results just in one research. Recent studies have shown that the “S” allele is associated with anxiety. Our study was the first report to show that the LL genotype and L allele in volleyball players are higher than the SS genotype and S allele.