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The Role of GABRA2 in Risk for Conduct Disorder and Alcohol and Drug Dependence Across Developmental Stages

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The Role of GABRA2 in Risk for Conduct Disorder and Alcohol and Drug Dependence Across Developmental Stages Behavior Genetics, Vol. 36, No. 4, July 2006 (Ó 2006) DOI: 10.1007/s10519-005-9041-8 The Role of GABRA2 in Risk for Conduct Disorder and Alcohol and Drug Dependence across Developmental Stages Danielle M. Dick,1,9 Laura Bierut,1 Anthony Hinrichs,1 Louis Fox,1 Kathleen K. Bucholz,1 John Kramer,2 Samuel Kuperman,2 Victor Hesselbrock,3 Marc Schuckit,4 Laura Almasy,5 Jay Tischfield,6 Bernice Porjesz,7 Henri Begleiter,7 John Nurnberger Jr.,8 Xiaoling Xuei,8 Howard J. Edenberg,8 and Tatiana Foroud8 Received Apr. 28 2005—Final Dec. 22 2005 We use findings from the behavior genetics literature about how genetic factors (latently) influence alcohol dependence and related disorders to develop and test hypotheses about the risk associated with a specific gene, GABRA2, across different developmental stages. This gene has previously been associated with adult alcohol dependence in the Collaborative Study of the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) sample [Edenberg, H. J., Dick, D. M., Xuei, X., Tian, H., Almasy, L., Bauer, L. O., Crowe, R., Goate, A., Hesselbrock, V., Jones, K. A., Kwon, J., Li, T. K., Nurnberger Jr., J. I., OÕConnor, S. J., Reich, T., Rice, J., Schuckit, M., Porjesz, B., Foroud, T., and Begleiter, H. (2004). Am. J. Hum. Genet. 74:705–714] and other studies [Covault, J., Gelernter, J., Hesselbrock, V., Nellissery, M., and Kranzler, H. R. (2004). Am. J. Med. Genet. B Neuropsychiatr. Genet. 129B:104–109; Lappalainen, J., Krupitsky, E., Remizov, M., Pchelina, S., Taraskina, A., Zvartau, E., Somberg, L. K., Covault, J., Kranzler, H. R., Krystal, J., and Gelernter, J. (2005). Alcohol. Clin. Exp. Res. 29:493–498]. In a sample of children and adolescents ascertained as part of the COGA project, we find that GABRA2 is significantly associated with childhood conduct disorder symptoms, but not with childhood alcohol dependence symptoms. A consistent elevation in risk for alcohol dependence associated with GABRA2 is not evident until the mid-20s and then remains throughout adulthood. GABRA2 is also associated with other drug dependence in our sample, both in adolescence and adulthood. KEY WORDS: Alcohol; conduct disorder; dependence; drug; GABA; substance use. INTRODUCTION 1 Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Washington Uni- versity School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA. The field of behavior genetics has made great pro- 2 University of Iowa School of Medicine, Iowa City, IA, USA. gress over the last several decades by convincingly 3 University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT, demonstrating that genetic variation contributes to USA. 4 individual differences in virtually all behavioral do- University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, La mains (McGue and Bouchard, 1998; McGuffin et al., Jolla, CA, USA. 5 Southwest Foundation, San Antonio, TX, USA. 2001; Rose, 1995). Traditional behavior genetic 6 Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA. analyses now have been expanded to address more 7 SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY, USA. complex and sophisticated questions about how ge- 8 Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA. 9 netic influences act. Areas currently being investi- To whom correspondence should be addressed at WUSM gated include developmental changes in the nature Psychiatry, Box 8134, 660 South Euclid, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA. Tel.: +1-314-286-2297; Fax: +1-314-286-2213; e-mail: and magnitude of genetic and environmental effects; [email protected] the extent to which different behaviors are influenced 577 0001-8244/06/0700-0577/0 Ó 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 578 Dick et al. by shared genes; and different forms of gene– Alcohol dependence symptoms also appear to environment correlation and interaction. be influenced by different factors at different devel- Parallel to the evolution of behavior genetics, opmental stages. Although many studies have dem- advances in statistical and molecular genetics are onstrated that alcohol dependence in adult samples making it possible to identify specific genes involved is significantly influenced by genetic factors (Heath in behavioral predispositions. Most gene identifica- et al., 1997; McGue, 1999), alcohol dependence tion efforts to date have focused on specific disorders; symptoms in early adolescence appear to be largely however, as susceptibility genes are identified, the influenced by environmental factors. In FinnTwin12, next step will be to characterize the risk associated 12% of the adolescents manifested some alcohol with specific genetic variants, in order to better problems by age 14 (as indicated by the endorse- understand how these genes are involved in the ment of DSM alcohol dependence symptoms); pathways leading to illness. Substance use problems however, genetic analyses of alcohol dependence provide a particularly rich area of study in this re- symptoms found no evidence of genetic effects in spect, as their onset is rarely sudden, but rather, is either males or females at age 14 (Rose et al., 2004). usually preceded by a trajectory of risk-related Alcohol dependence symptoms were entirely envi- behavior. This creates an exciting opportunity to use ronmentally influenced at this age. Data from the findings emerging from behavior genetics about how Missouri Adolescent Female Twin Study show a genetic influences act, to develop and test hypotheses similar pattern of results, with alcohol dependence about the developmental trajectories of risk associ- symptoms in adolescence largely influenced by ated with specific genes. environmental factors (Knopik, 2005). Lack of evi- Twin studies suggest that there are several inter- dence for genetic influence on alcohol dependence in esting developmental changes associated with genetic early adolescence also has been reported in the influences on alcohol use and dependence. The mag- COGA sample (Kuperman et al., 2001b). These nitude of importance of genetic effects appears to vary findings may seem counter-intuitive, as early across stages of alcohol use. The initiation of alcohol onset alcoholism is often cited as a more heritable use is largely influenced by environmental factors form of the disorder (Cloninger et al., 1981), as (Rhee et al., 2003; Rose et al., 2001b); however, as are early-onset cases of many disorders (e.g., individuals progress from initial experimentation to breast cancer, Claus et al., 1990); however, early more established, regular patterns of use, genetic onset alcoholism often refers to onset in the early influences become increasingly important. Data from 20s as compared to later in life, and the studies cited the Finnish Twin Studies illustrate this dynamic above showing little genetic influence refer to alco- change in the relative importance of genetic and hol dependence symptoms in early adolescence. common environmental influences on alcohol use Thus, one developmental change that can occur across 14, 16, 17, and 18.5-year-olds. Genetic influ- is that the magnitude of genetic influence on a trait ences were negligible at 14 years, accounting for only may vary across time. Another developmental change 18% of the variance in drinking initiation at age 14, involves genetic influences being expressed as differ- and this was significant only in girls (Rose et al., ent phenotypes at different developmental stages. 2001b). However, longitudinal data on drinking fre- Alcohol dependence has been shown to be highly quency across ages 16, 17, and 18.5 years demonstrate comorbid with many psychiatric problems. Conduct a steady increase in the relevance of genetic factors, disorder is one such related behavioral syndrome that with genes accounting for a third of the variation in is a robust predictor of both concurrent and future drinking patterns in both sexes by age 16, and half of alcohol problems (Kuperman et al., 2001a, b; Molina the variation by age 18 (Rose et al., 2001a). Thus, et al., 2002; Moss and Lynch, 2001; White et al., alcohol initiation and use early in adolescence appears 2001). Twin studies have demonstrated that the cor- to be almost entirely influenced by family, school, and relation between adult alcohol dependence and neighborhood influences; however, as drinking childhood conduct disorder is due, in large part, to patterns develop, differentiate, and stabilize across shared genetic factors (Kendler et al., 2003; Slutske adolescence, genetic factors assume increasing et al., 1998). Further support for this idea can be importance on drinking patterns (Rose et al., 2003). found in a genome scan of retrospectively reported This may in part reflect increasing independence from childhood conduct disorder that identified linkage to parents and family, providing opportunity for a chromosomal region (2p) that also showed linkage expression of genetic variation. to adult alcohol dependence (Dick et al., 2003). GABRA2 in Risk for Conduct Disorder and Alcohol and Drug Dependence 579 These findings are particularly interesting be- dependence are more heritable as individuals move cause childhood conduct disorder shows significant from adolescence to young adulthood, we hypothe- evidence of genetic influence (Goldstein et al., 2001; sized that the influence of the genotype on substance Rose et al., 2004; Simonoff et al., 1998; Slutske et al., use would not emerge until later in adolescence/ 1997), in contrast to early adolescent alcohol symp- young adulthood. Thus, we conducted survival toms. This, in combination with studies showing a analyses in order to more thoroughly explore the shared genetic basis for conduct disorder and alcohol influence of the genotype
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