In addition to CDH13 and PRKG1, 214 additional genes are identified by the clustered positive results that we nominate from comparisons of treatment-seeking individuals who successfully vs unsuccessfully abstain from smoking. Sixteen of these additional genes produce products related to cell adhesion, 32 genes' products relate to enzymatic activities, 37 encode receptors and/or G-protein mechanisms, 27 encode transcriptional regulators and others encode channels, gene products involved in mechanisms for Mendelian disorders, structural proteins, proteins involved with vesicle function, transporters, genes involved with DNA, RNA or protein processing and genes of unknown functions. These genes, taken together, should be considered nominees to contain variants that could play roles in the genetic underpinnings of successful abstinence from smoking. We can confidently exclude the probability that technical features contribute to the genes identified by the quitter vs nonquitter comparisons. With the modest sample sizes reported here, however, we cannot exclude contributions from random differences in haplotype distributions between these two groups. Further studies will be necessary to confidently identify which of the individual genes nominated in this study display replicable results.
