We identified 337 clinically relevant or known gene biomarkers for alcoholism based on computer searches of key words from peer reviewed medical literature reports or nationally sponsored web sites. These genetic biomarkers may be causative in nature or transient reflecting physiological responses to alcohol use or environmental influences such as poor nutrition, sanitation, and exposure to other drugs, illnesses, and viruses, common in chronic alcoholism. Transient, potentially modifiable genomic imbalances are important considerations in discovery, treatment and assessment of phenotypic outcomes in alcoholism. Future studies should also consider the impact of copy number variation, segmental deletions and duplications and regions of homozygosity in the genome for determination of identical by descent for calculation of inbreeding coefficients or consanguinity status along with uniparental disomy of individual chromosomes and areas of genomic imprinting on alcoholism risk and course of illness.
