This collaborative genetic meta-analysis of smoking behavior is the first to show consistent association in the chromosome 15q25 region with heavy smoking, across samples representing three genetically distinct populations – European ancestry, Asian, and African American. Previous meta-analyses examined only European ancestry data to definitively identify associations between chromosome 15q25 and smoking behavior. Smaller individual studies of Asians and African Americans have previously examined this region for association with smoking and related phenotypes. Smoking quantity has been reported as associated with variants correlated with rs16969968 in subjects of Asian and African American descent [Amos, et al. 2010; Li, et al. 2005; Li, et al. 2010; Saccone, et al. 2009; Schwartz, et al. 2010; Shiraishi, et al. 2009; Wu, et al. 2009]. Our meta-analysis synthesizes reported findings of individual SNP associations and compares genetic associations across multi-population samples to take the correlations between genetic variants within each population into account. Our meta-analysis strengthens the evidence of association between the specific SNP rs16969968 in bin A and heavy smoking across these diverse populations.
