Next interesting locus was KCNB2 at 8q13.2. Two SNPs (rs2128158 and rs2929567) had significant associations with Maxdrinks in COGA and SAGE samples. Noticeably, rs2929576 had been well replicated in the OZALC sample (p=0.0142) while 4 additional SNPs in KCNB2 also showed borderline significant associations with Maxdrinks. KCNB2 may be functional because cis-eQTL signal was detected in this gene in this study. KCNB2 has been reported to be highly associated with left ventricular diastolic dimension, which is a heritable trait that is associated with cardiovascular disease (Vasan et al., 2007). Furthermore, KCNB2 interacted with CACNB2 in influencing common migraine (Nyholt et al., 2008). In a genome wide expression analysis, KCNB2 was found to be associated with long-term changes after acute nicotine exposure that may have complicated influences related to the function of the nervous system (Wang et al., 2011).
