Browsing by Subject "Genetic trait"

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    Genetic strategies to detect genes involved in alcoholism and alcohol-related traits
    (The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2002) Dick, Danielle M.; Foroud, Tatiana; Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine
    Researchers are using a variety of sophisticated approaches to identify genes that contribute to the development of alcoholism in humans or influence other alcohol-related traits. These strategies include linkage approaches, which can identify broad chromosomal regions that are likely to contain genes predisposing to the disorder, and association approaches, which test the association between a particular marker allele and a specific outcome. Animal studies using diverse strategies can also help identify genes or DNA regions that influence alcohol-related traits in humans. The results of these analyses are likely to have implications for fields such as genetic counseling, gene therapy, and pharmacogenetics.
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    Is there a genetic relationship between alcoholism and depression?
    (The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2002) Nurnberger, John I., Jr.; Foroud, Tatiana; Flury, Leah; Meyer, Eric T.; Wiegand, Ryan; Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine
    The Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) seeks to identify genes contributing to alcoholism and related traits (i.e., phenotypes), including depression. Among alcoholic subjects the COGA study found an increased prevalence of depressive syndrome (i.e., depression that may or may not occur in conjunction with increased drinking). This combination of alcoholism and depression tends to run in families. Comorbid alcoholism and depression occurred substantially more often in first-degree relatives of COGA participants with alcoholism than in relatives of control participants. Based on these data, COGA investigators defined three phenotypes—“alcoholism,” “alcoholism and depression,” and “alcoholism or depression”—and analyzed whether these phenotypes were linked to specific chromosomal regions. These analyses found that the “alcoholism or depression” phenotype showed significant evidence for genetic linkage to an area on chromosome 1. This suggests that a gene or genes on chromosome 1 may predispose some people to alcoholism and others to depression (which may be alcohol induced).