Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use

Abstract Tobacco and alcohol use are heritable behaviours associated with 15% and 5.3% of worldwide deaths, respectively, due largely to broad increased risk for disease and injury 1–4 . These substances are used across the globe, yet genome-wide association studies have focused largely on individuals of European ancestries 5 . Here we leveraged global genetic diversity across 3.4 million individuals from four major clines of global ancestry (approximately 21% non-European) to power the discovery and fine-mapping of genomic loci associated with tobacco and alcohol use, to inform function of these loci via ancestry-aware transcriptome-wide association studies, and to evaluate the genetic architecture and…

• UO
  University of Pennsylvania
• PS
  Pennsylvania State University
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Awards: U01DA041120, R01DA042755, R03OD032630, R01GM126479, T32DA050560
• PS
  Penn State College of Medicine
• MR
  Medical Research Council

  Awards: MC_PC_14135, MC_UU_00017/1, MC_PC_17228, MR/S003762/1, MC_PC_13049