Parsing genetically influenced risk pathways: genetic loci impact problematic alcohol use via externalizing and specific risk.

ABSTRACT: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identify genetic variants associated with a trait, regardless of how those variants are associated with the outcome. Characterizing whether variants for psychiatric outcomes operate via specific versus general pathways provides more informative measures of genetic risk. In the current analysis, we used multivariate GWAS to tease apart variants associated with problematic alcohol use (ALCP-total) through either a shared risk for externalizing (EXT) or a problematic alcohol use-specific risk (ALCP-specific). SNPs associated with ALCP-specific were primarily related to alcohol metabolism. Genetic correlations showed ALCP-specific was predominantly associated with alcohol use and other forms of psychopathology, but not other forms of substance use. Polyge

SUBMITTER: Barr PB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9525649 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature