Publication Date:
2013-01-01
Description:
Substance dependence is a complex environmental and genetic disorder with significant social and medical concerns. Understanding the etiology of substance dependence is imperative to the development of effective treatment and prevention strategies. To this end, substantial effort has been made to identify genes underlying substance dependence, and in recent years, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have led to discoveries of numerous genetic variants for complex diseases including substance dependence. Most of the GWAS discoveries were only based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and a single dichotomized outcome. By employing both SNP- and gene-based methods of analysis, we identified a strong (odds ratio = 13.87) and significant (Pvalue =1.33E−11) association of an SNP in theNCK2gene on chromosome 2 with opiates addiction in African-origin men. Codependence analysis also identified a genome-wide significant association betweenNCK2and comorbidity of substance dependence (Pvalue =3.65E−08) in African-origin men. Furthermore, we observed that the association between theNCK2gene (Pvalue =3.12E−10) and opiates addiction reached the gene-based genome-wide significant level. In summary, our findings provided the first evidence for the involvement ofNCK2in the susceptibility to opiates addiction and further revealed the racial and gender specificities of its impact.
Print ISSN:
2356-6140
Electronic ISSN:
1537-744X
Topics:
Natural Sciences in General
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