Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays important roles in the survival, maintenance and growth of neurons. Several studies have suggested that BDNF is likely to be related to the pathogenesis of schizophrenia which is one of the most common psychiatric disorder. Recent genetic analyses have revealed that BDNF gene polymorphisms are associated with schizophrenia, although contradictory findings have been reported that most of them were negative. To assess whether a BDNF gene polymorphism (rs6265) could be implicated in susceptibility to schizophrenia, we carried out a case–control association study (100 patients and 96 controls) in subjects from Western Turkey. We detected no association between this BDNF gene polymorphism and schizophrenia. While this study is the first in a Turkish population, it is limited in its interpretability as the sample size is quite small. It may thus only serve as a first exploratory step that needs to be followed by further in-depth studies in larger samples from Turkey.