ASSOCIATION STUDIES OF POLYMORPHISMS OF CYP2E1 GENE IN ALCOHOLICS WITH CIRRHOSIS, ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY, AND NORMAL CONTROLS

To determine the role of CYP2E1 gene in susceptibility to alcoholism a nd alcohol cirrhosis, we gentoyped a sample of alcoholics with and wit hout cirrhosis, alcoholics with antisocial personality, alcoholic fami lies, and normal controls with Rsal, Psti, and Dral polymorphisms in t he gene. Relative risk and haplotype relative risk approaches were use d in genotype data analysis. The Pstl polymorphism data were excluded from further analysis due to strong linkage disequilibrium with Rsal, For the Rsal polymorphism, comparison of tot al alcoholics, alcoholics with and without cirrhosis, and alcoholics with antisocial personalit y with normal controls were negative. The results of the same analysis with the above groups for Dral were also negative. Using the haplotyp e relative risk method, the result for Dral was positive, meaning that the mutated allele (D-2) was significantly more transmitted than nont ransmitted. However, the result of the same analysis for the Rsal poly morphism was not statistically significant. We conclude that the CYP2E 1 gene plays no substantial role in susceptibility to alcohol cirrhosi s or alcoholism.