The study, “Deep Sequencing of Three Loci Implicated in Large-Scale Genome-Wide Association Study Smoking Meta-Analyses,” was published in August as an advanced online publication in the Oxford University Press journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.“We dug deeper into genes known to be associated with smoking,” said Shaunna L. Clark, a research assistant professor with the CBPRM. Previous large-scale, genomewide association studies have identified three genes that are related to cigarette addiction, but the VCU-led study is the first to identify specific sets of genetic variants that might be responsible.
Researchers at the CBRPM sequenced the three genes and their adjacent regions to get a complete catalog of all the genetic variation that could be contributing to addiction. Sequencing the entire gene allowed Clark and her colleagues to examine variants that other studies had not addressed, such as rare variants not commonly found in the population and regulatory variants that can increase or decrease gene expression.
“We found that the tendency toward nicotine addiction is likely caused by many variants, each with a small effect,” Clark said. “Thus, multiple variants within the same gene are related to smoking.”
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01 DA024413, R01 MH045268, R01 MH068521, R25 DA026119, K01 AA021266 and K01 MH093731). Researchers from Duke University Medical Center and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill contributed to the study.
Listen to Clark’s short interview with WCVE-FM Radio’s John Ogle: WCVE-FM interview
About Nicotine & Tobacco Research
Nicotine & Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, is one of the world’s few peer-reviewed journals devoted exclusively to the study of nicotine and tobacco. It aims to provide a forum for empirical findings, critical reviews and conceptual papers on the many aspects of nicotine and tobacco, including research from the biobehavioral, neurobiological, molecular biologic, epidemiological, prevention and treatment arenas.
