The genome-wide association (GWA) study has been successfully used as an important tool for identifying regions of human genome that are associated with more than 40 different common diseases. This approach has provided new insights into pathophysiology and suggested previously unsuspected etiologic pathways for common diseases that could be of use in identifying new therapeutic targets and in developing targeted interventions based on genetically defined risk (Manolio et al., 2008). Recently, there are several completed GWA studies for alcohol dependence (Bierut et al., 2010; Edenberg et al., 2010; Lind et al., 2010; Treutlein et al., 2011). However, based on our knowledge, no GWA study has been conducted on MaxDrinks as a quantitative phenotype in the literature. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis using two genome-wide data to detect genetic variants that may influence MaxDrinks in both Caucasian samples. We also used the dataset from The Australian twin-family study of alcohol use disorder (OZALC study) for replication.
