The kinetic properties of ADH1B and its high levels of expression in liver suggest that it has the largest impact on alcohol consumption and the risk for alcohol dependence; several aspects were reviewed recently (Polimanti and Gelernter, 2018, Edenberg and Bosron, 2018). It is among the top 100 genes expressed in liver, adipose and mammary tissues. It is expressed at lower levels in many other tissues, but at barely detectable levels in brain and whole blood (Figure 2). There are many single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that affect its expression in one or more tissues (eQTLs), with many concentrated in the region between ADH1C and ADH7 and others between ADH4 and ADH6 (Supplementary Figure 1; all eQTL data are from gtexportal.org (GTEx Consortium, 2013)); many of these SNPs are in strong LD.
