| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Liver cystolic aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 (ALDH1A1) has been previously associated with both alcohol dependence and alcohol consumption behaviour, and has been implicated in alcohol-induced flushing and alcohol sensitivity in Caucasians. The present study tested for association between <it>ALDH1A1 </it>and alcohol consumption behaviour and susceptibility to problem drinking or alcohol dependence in Finnish cohorts of unrelated male subjects recruited from alcoholism clinical treatment facilities (<it>n </it>= 104) and from the general population (<it>n </it>= 201). All participants completed the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) and were genotyped for eight single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within or flanking <it>ALDH1A1</it>. To test for association between alcohol consumption behaviour and these polymorphisms, we used generalised linear models and haplotypic analysis. Three SNPs were nominally associated (rs348449, <it>p </it>= 0.043; rs610529, <it>p </it>= 0.013; rs348479, <it>p </it>= 0.025) with the quantitative AUDIT score, which evaluates alcohol consumption behaviour. Two-locus (rs6I0529-rs2288087) haplotype analysis increased the strength of association with AUDIT score (<it>p </it>= 0.00I5). Additionally, rs348449 is highly associated with problem drinking (allelic odds ratio [OR] 7.87, 95 per cent confidence interval [CI] 1.67-37.01) but due to the low minor allele frequency (0.01 and 0.07 in controls and problem drinkers, respectively), more samples are required to validate this observation. Conversely, rs348479 (<it>p </it>= 0.019) and rs6I0529 (allelic OR 0.65, 95 per cent CI 0.43-0.98; genotypic OR 0.32, 95 per cent CI 0.12-0.84) are implicated in alcohol dependence status. This study provides further evidence for a role for <it>ALDH1A1 </it>in alcohol consumption behaviour, including problem drinking and possibly alcohol dependence, in our Finnish population.</p>
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