The confirmation of genetic variants associated with the subjective response after alcohol consumption

Association studies have revealed a number of genetic variants associated with the individual subjective responses to alcohol. The most extensively studied ones were nine SNPs among the gene of ADH1B, ADH1C, ALDH2, CYP2E1*5B, CHRNA3, GABRA2, OPRM1, HYKK and SLC6A4. However, the one who plays the major role still remains undetermined. In the present study, fourteen subjects were administered 1.0g/kg of alcohol. SHAS was filled out and PRT was carried out to evaluate the subjective responses before and 2h, 4h and 8h after alcohol consumption. Besides, these nine SNPs of each subject were genotyped with multiplex SNaPshot method. Repeated measures analysis of variance was applied to link the subjective response tests and genotype results. It indicated that the subjects with SLC6A4A/C show significantly stronger subjective feelings of alcohol intoxication than that of subjects with C/C (P=0.042<0.05). The genetic variant of SLC6A4 is associated with the level of subjective response to alcohol in the preliminary trial.