Following this trend, a recent meta-analysis of alcohol consumption (N=47,500) identified a variant, rs6943555, in autism susceptibility candidate 2 (AUTS2) gene.92 Follow-up analyses found expression changes in AUTS2 in mice bred for alcohol preference.92 For alcohol dependence, although similar meta-analytic efforts are ongoing, Frank et al.83 recently identified rs1789891, which is a proxy for the functional Arg272Gln variant in ADH1C, to be associated with alcohol dependence at P=1.27 × 10−8. Given the clear biological significance of this variant, this finding is particularly encouraging.
