Our two-stage genome-wide analysis implicates chromosomes 2 and 7 as potentially harboring loci influencing the maximum drinks consumption phenotype. Follow-up association analysis supports chromosome 7 more strongly than chromosome 2, and suggests that further fine-mapping efforts on chromosome 7 may be constructive. Interestingly, this region of chromosome 7q contains several TAS2R bitter taste receptor genes [7], and haplotype status at one of these, TAS2R38, has been shown to be a significant predictor of alcohol intake [8]. The muscarinic receptor CHRM2 gene associated with alcohol dependence and major depressive syndrome in COGA [9] is also in this region.
