Substance dependence low-density whole genome association study in two distinct American populations

Cocaine and opioid dependence are common, complex disorders with high heritability that commonly co-occur with other substance dependence disorders. Improved insight into the genetic basis of substance dependence would help elucidate its etiology and could inform its prevention and treatment. To generate new hypotheses about the genetics of substance dependence, we genotyped 5633 tagging single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in 1699 subjects from 339 African American (AA) families and 334 European American (EA) families ascertained through a sib pair meeting DSM-IV criteria for either cocaine or opioid dependence. The associations between genetic markers and five substance dependence traits (cocaine dependence, opioid dependence, cocaine-induced paranoia, alcohol dependence, and nicotine dependence) were assessed by family based association tests (FBAT). Results were ranked according to several criteria including statistical significance, concordance of results across population samples, and potential biological relevance of the implicated gene. The top-ranked result was an association of SNP rs1133503 in the MANEA gene with cocaine-induced paranoia (CIP). Our study provides an initial substance dependence trait-specific blueprint of associated regions for future candidate gene studies.