Repeated studies in carefully selected samples will be necessary to confirm many of these observations. Larger samples that study effects of single pharmacologic treatments may also identify genes whose influences are specific to particular treatments. The current data not only nominates candidate for replication in further samples, however. Taken as a whole, it provides molecular genetic support for the idea that ability to abstain from nicotine has polygenic genetic components that overlap, in part, with those that contribute to vulnerability to nicotine dependence. This work also supports overlaps between the polygenic molecular genetic determinants that predispose to nicotine vulnerability and those that predispose to addictions to other legal and illegal addictive substances. Each of these features thus provides support for further elucidation of genetic variants that are associated with smoking cessation success. Each of these results provides promise that we may be able to begin to use such data to help match treatments with those most likely to benefit from them in the relatively near future.
