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Association of alcohol dehydrogenase genes with alcohol-related phenotypes in a Native American community sample
Ian R Gizer1, Howard J Edenberg, David A Gilder
1Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA.
Background:
Previous linkage studies, including a study of the Native American population described in the present report, have provided evidence for linkage of alcohol dependence and related traits to chromosome 4q near a cluster of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) genes, which encode enzymes of alcohol metabolism.
Methods:
The present study tested for associations between alcohol dependence and related traits and 22 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) spanning the 7 ADH genes. Participants included 586 adult men and women recruited from 8 contiguous Native American reservations. A structured interview was used to assess DSM-III-R alcohol dependence criteria as well as a set of severe alcohol misuse symptoms and alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
Results:
No evidence for association with the alcohol dependence diagnosis was observed, but an SNP in exon 9 of ADH1B (rs2066702; ADH1B*3) and an SNP at the 5' end of ADH4 (rs3762894) showed significant evidence of association with the presence of withdrawal symptoms (p = 0.0018 and 0.0012, respectively). Further, a haplotype analysis of these 2 SNPs suggested that the haplotypes containing either of the minor alleles were protective against alcohol withdrawal relative to the ancestral haplotype (p = 0.000006).
Conclusions:
These results suggest that variants in the ADH1B and ADH4 genes may be protective against the development of some symptoms associated with alcohol dependence.
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