GWAS of alcohol dependence have to date yielded modest findings. The combined discovery and replication stage data from a GWAS of 1,511 male German alcohol dependence cases and 2,354 matched controls gave genome-wide significant evidence of association with alcohol dependence for two SNPs, rs7590720 (P = 9.72 × 10−9) and rs1344694 (P = 1.69 × 10−8), in an intergenic region on chromosome 2q35. Both are in linkage disequilibrium with the peroxisomal trans-2-enoyl-coenzymeA reductase (PECR) gene, involved in fatty acid metabolism and most highly expressed in the liver82. Signals in the combined sample were also observed in the prior candidate genes alcohol dehydrogenase 1C (ADH1C, rs1614972, combined P = 1.41 × 10−4) and cadherin 13 (CDH13, rs11640875, combined P = 1.84 × 10−5).
