Genome Variation in Alcohol Use Disorder by Whole-Exome Sequencing

Alcohol use disorder is closely related to genetic and environmental factors. However, the contribution of coding variation to alcohol use disorder susceptibility remains poorly understood. We aimed to identify genetic mutations in alcohol use disorder by whole exon sequencing. We performed whole-exome sequencing in 83 patients with alcohol use disorder and compared it with exome sequences of healthy controls that were collected from the 1000 Genomes Project. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis and protein interaction analysis were performed for the mutated genes in each group. Three online protein function prediction sites were used to predict whether SNPs/InDels cause protein coding changes. Further, we conducted a rare variant exploration. We identified 106 525 SNV and 19 826 InDel gene mutations in alcohol use disorder. In the healthy and alcohol use disorder groups, mutations in CNTNAP3, ZNF683, ALDPH2, CCHCR1, ZNF45 and ESRRA loci were found to be deleterious mutations in all three sites; CNTNAP3, ZNF683, ALDPH2, CCHCR1, ZNF45 and ESRRA may be potential targets for future precision treatment of alcohol use disorders, and further provide new ideas for drug development.