[Genetic and epidemiologic studies on alcoholic liver diseases]

Polymorphic alleles of several genes such as ADH2, ALDH2, ApoB100, GST1, GST3 and ALAD were investigated from the aspect of the relationship with alcohol related diseases. DNAs were prepared from whole blood samples of 84 healthy controls (male), 70 patients (male) with alcohol related diseases and 87 patients (male) with non-alcoholic diseases. PCR technique was used for the detection of GST1 showed a good correlation to alcoholic liver diseases. The patients with alcoholic liver diseases had a higher frequency of ALDH2*1 than the healthy controls (p < 0.005). The frequencies of GST1 gene deletion in the samples were as follows: Healthy controls; 47.6%, alcoholic liver diseases (fibrosis: 75%, cirrhosis: 65.5%, hepatoma: 75%) and non-alcoholic liver diseases: 54%. The data indicated that the patients with alcoholic liver diseases had a significantly higher frequency of gene deletion than the healthy controls (p < 0.005). In addition, homozygote of ALAD1 allele detected by MpsI-RFLP showed a good correlation to alcoholic liver diseases. Thus, the genetic polymorphism of ALDH2, GST1 gene deletion and ALAD can be applied widely for the study of genetic association with alcoholic liver diseases.