AsianScientist (Mar. 31, 2011) – A Korean study of more than 3,000 male drinkers has led to the identification of genetic loci associated with the amount of alcohol consumed.
The study groups consisted of 1,721 40-69 year old male drinkers from an urban population compared against 1,113 male drinkers from a rural population. Members of both groups provided information on their average daily alcohol consumption and submitted their DNA samples for genotyping.
In a genome-wide association study, 12 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on chromosome 12q24 had significant associations with alcohol consumption.
Most SNPs were found in intronic regions, and genes that harbored the SNPs were C12orf51, CCDC63, MYL2, OAS3, CUX2, and RPH3A. In particular, signals in or near C12orf51, CCDC63, and MYL2 were successfully replicated in the test for 317,951 SNPs; rs2074356 in C12orf51 was in high linkage disequilibrium with SNPs in ALDH2, but other SNPs were not.
These polymorphisms were closely related to genes that determine levels of alcohol dehydrogenase (ALDH), low levels of which relate to flushing after even small amounts of alcohol. Such enzymes are much more common among Asians than among westerners.
The study only tested associations with total amount of alcohol consumed weekly, not the pattern of drinking; hence, these findings are not direct measures of alcoholism.
In an accompanying editorial by Agrawal A et al., the authors pointed out the role of environmental factors in alcoholism. They also suggested the need to separate moderate drinkers from binge drinkers, and increase the sample size of the study. The original paper did not adjust for smoking, which is very highly correlated for alcohol use.
The article can be found at: Baik et al. (2011) Genome-wide association studies identify genetic loci related to alcohol consumption in Korean men.
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Source: ACJN.
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