The strongest and most consistent findings for GWAS for AUD are for alcohol metabolizing genes, as in a recent study in an East Asian (Korean) sample of alcoholics in which ALDH2 and ADH1B showed up as GWAS signals with genome-wide significance [68]. One of the few other GWAS with a significant result was a meta-analysis of an alcohol consumption phenotype in 26,316 individuals from 12 European ancestry population based samples with replication genotyping in another 21,185 individuals that found a genome-wide significant result for one SNP in the autism susceptibility candidate gene 2 (AUTS2) [69]. Subsequent analysis showed that AUTS2 was implicated in alcohol consumption in mice and alcohol sensitivity in drosophila [69]. This gene plays a role in neurodevelopment, at least in zebrafish and mice [70].
