The current study is the first genome wide study to test Han Chinese individuals for association with heroin dependence. The samples were hybridized to the Illumina HumanCoreExome-12v1_A microarray, developed to capture extensive genomic variation including rare single nucleotide variants and insertions/ deletions (indels). We assessed the data for risk variants as well as pathways that might be functionally relevant in heroin dependence. It would have been relevant to test exposed controls but these were not available hence the analysis was limited to dependence. Nonetheless, the results are of value due to the novelty of population tested as well as the results of the post hoc analyses, such as gene-based association tests, and polygenic risk scores.
