Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are a group of devastating conditions with serious health and social consequences. The World Health Organization estimates that 76.3 million people have an AUD and that each year the harmful use of alcohol kills 1.8 million people (WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol 2004). Genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of AUDs. The heritability for alcohol dependence is approximately 0.5, indicating a strong genetic component for predisposition to this disease [1], [2]. Several genes have been linked to alcohol dependence and behavioral responses to alcohol, including COMT, which is involved in catecholamine metabolism, ALDH2 and ADH1B, enzymes involved in alcohol metabolism, and several GABAA receptor subunits [3]. However, the genetics of AUDs remain poorly understood and the predisposition to AUDs likely involves many genes. We have employed an invertebrate model organism, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, to identify novel genes that modify the behavioral response to ethanol [4]. This approach has been successfully used to identify candidate genes that regulate not only acute behavioral responses to ethanol but also alcohol consumption in mammals [5].
