The Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) has been exploring these elements and has identified potential genes associated with the risk of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) through comprehensive genetic studies.
In this fifth section, COGA continues with its investigation, by further diving into how genetics affect the body’s function in the context of AUD. COGA researchers have used various methods involving human cell lines and brain tissue to delve into gene regulation, examining cells from their participants and brain tissues post-mortem. They’ve employed advanced assays to spot specific gene variations that impact gene expression.
By using induced pluripotent stem cells from participants, they’ve simulated these genetic variations to study their effects on various aspects like brain cell activity, responses to alcohol, and genetic patterns in individuals with and without alcohol use disorder. Additionally, COGA suggests potential future research avenues, including utilizing polygenic risk scores and populations of stem cell-derived neurons to identify pathways connected to responses to alcohol. COGA’s work demonstrates that combining different types of data within participants and functional studies can uncover how genetic differences relate to alcohol use disorder and potentially reveal new treatment targets.
Gameiro-Ros, I., Popova, D., Prytkova, I., Pang, Z. P., Liu, Y., Dick, D., Bucholz, K. K., Agrawal, A., Porjesz, B., Goate, A. M., Xuei, X., Kamarajan, C., COGA Collaborators, Tischfield, J. A., Edenberg, H. J., Slesinger, P. A., & Hart, R. P. (2023). 5. Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism: Functional genomics. Genes, brain, and behavior, 22(5), e12855. https://doi.org/10.1111/gbb.12855
