IPO11 is a flanking gene of HTR1A. It encodes the importin 11 that is a member of the karyopherin/importin-beta family of transport receptors. This receptor mediates nucleocytoplasmic transport of protein and RNA cargoes (Plafker and Macara, 2000). It has been reported that, in mice, IPO11 expression was significantly regulated by ethanol in the prefrontal cortex (Kerns et al., 2005) and in the whole embryos (Zhou et al., 2011). In the present study, we found many alcohol and nicotine co-dependence-associated markers had significant cis-acting regulatory effects on IPO11 mRNA expression both in the brain and the PBMC. Thus, IPO11 might play important roles in alcohol and nicotine co-dependence too.
