Recently, we reported a GWAS conducted in 487 male inpatients with DSM-IV AD and 1,358 population based control individuals (for a detailed description see Treutlein, Cichon, Ridinger et al. 2009). In brief, no marker surpassed the threshold of genome-wide significance. In a subsequent follow-up study of an independent sample of 1,024 male AD inpatients and 996 controls, we genotyped the 121 top SNPs from the GWAS as well as an additional 19 SNPs suggested by combining the GWAS results with gene expression data from rats subjected to chronic alcohol exposure. In a combined analysis of the GWAS and follow-up data, two tightly linked intergenic SNPs located close to the peroxisomal trans-2-enoyl-CoA reductase (PECR) gene achieved genome-wide significance.
