Confirmation of association of the GABRA2 gene with alcohol dependence by subtype-specific analysis.
OBJECTIVE
Three recent studies revealed a haplotypic association of alcohol dependence with the gene encoding the alpha2 subunit of the gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptor (GABRA2). The present study examined whether variation of the GABRA2 gene confers susceptibility to different subtypes of alcohol dependence in the German population.


METHODS
A total of 257 German alcohol-dependent patients and 88 healthy population controls were genotyped for six single-nucleotide polymorphisms covering the middle part and the 3' end of GABRA2. Allelic, genotypic and haplotypic comparisons were done for subgroups of alcohol-dependent patients with a presumed high genetic load.


RESULTS
The overall alcohol-dependent patients vs. control group comparison confirmed positive allelic association for five of six single-nucleotide polymorphisms mapping from intron 3 to the 3' end of GABRA2 (P=0.01-0.02). Haplotype analysis revealed two common haplotypes accounting for approximately 90% of the chromosomes within the patients and controls. The less frequent haplotype was significantly more prevalent among the alcohol-dependent patients (45%) than among the controls [29%; odds ratio (OR)=1.97, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.30-2.96]. The strength of association increased, if the subsets of alcohol-dependent patients with a positive family history (OR=2.60, 95% CI: 1.63-4.13), withdrawal seizures (OR=2.22, 95% CI: 1.30-3.79) or an early onset (OR=2.19, 95% CI: 1.24-3.88) were analyzed.


CONCLUSIONS
Although our study was limited by the number of cases being larger than the number of controls, the results confirm GABRA2 as a susceptibility gene for alcohol dependence in the German population. We found a consistent increase of the susceptibility effect in alcohol-dependent patients with a presumed strong genetic predisposition.
Fehr
Christoph
C
Department of Psychiatry, University of Mainz, 55131 Mainz, Germany. fehrc@uni-mainz.de
Sander
Thomas
T
Tadic
Andre
A
Lenzen
Kirsten P
KP
Anghelescu
Ion
I
Klawe
Christoph
C
Dahmen
Norbert
N
Schmidt
Lutz G
LG
Szegedi
Armin
A
D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000235:genetics*; D000483:Alleles; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D018628:Gene Dosage; D005838:Genotype; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium; D008297:Male; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D011963:Receptors, GABA-A / Q000235:genetics*
C484841:GABRA2 protein, human; D011963:Receptors, GABA-A