Alcohol Dehydrogenases, Aldehyde Dehydrogenases, and Alcohol Use Disorders: A Critical Review.

ABSTRACT: Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are complex traits, meaning that variations in many genes contribute to the risk, as does the environment. Although the total genetic contribution to risk is substantial, most individual variations make only very small contributions. By far the strongest contributors are functional variations in 2 genes involved in alcohol (ethanol [EtOH]) metabolism. A functional variant in alcohol dehydrogenase 1B (ADH1B) is protective in people of European and Asian descent, and a different functional variant in the same gene is protective in those of African descent. A strongly protective variant in aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) is essentially only found in Asians. This highlights the need to study a wide range of populations. The likely mechanism of protection against h

SUBMITTER: Edenberg HJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6286250 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature