Meta-analysis of up to 622,409 individuals identifies 40 novel smoking behaviour associated genetic loci.
Erzurumluoglu AM., Liu M., Jackson VE., Barnes DR., Datta G., Melbourne CA., Young R., Batini C., Surendran P., Jiang T., Adnan SD., Afaq S., Agrawal A., Altmaier E., Antoniou AC., Asselbergs FW., Baumbach C., Bierut L., Bertelsen S., Boehnke M., Bots ML., Brazel DM., Chambers JC., Chang-Claude J., Chen C., Corley J., Chou Y-L., David SP., de Boer RA., de Leeuw CA., Dennis JG., Dominiczak AF., Dunning AM., Easton DF., Eaton C., Elliott P., Evangelou E., Faul JD., Foroud T., Goate A., Gong J., Grabe HJ., Haessler J., Haiman C., Hallmans G., Hammerschlag AR., Harris SE., Hattersley A., Heath A., Hsu C., Iacono WG., Kanoni S., Kapoor M., Kaprio J., Kardia SL., Karpe F., Kontto J., Kooner JS., Kooperberg C., Kuulasmaa K., Laakso M., Lai D., Langenberg C., Le N., Lettre G., Loukola A., Luan J., Madden PAF., Mangino M., Marioni RE., Marouli E., Marten J., Martin NG., McGue M., Michailidou K., Mihailov E., Moayyeri A., Moitry M., Müller-Nurasyid M., Naheed A., Nauck M., Neville MJ., Nielsen SF., North K., Perola M., Pharoah PDP., Pistis G., Polderman TJ., Posthuma D., Poulter N., Qaiser B., Rasheed A., Reiner A., Renström F., Rice J., Rohde R., Rolandsson O., Samani NJ., Samuel M., Schlessinger D., Scholte SH., Scott RA., Sever P., Shao Y., Shrine N., Smith JA., Starr JM., Stirrups K., Stram D., Stringham HM., Tachmazidou I., Tardif J-C., Thompson DJ., Tindle HA., Tragante V., Trompet S., Turcot V., Tyrrell J., Vaartjes I., van der Leij AR., van der Meer P., Varga TV., Verweij N., Völzke H., Wareham NJ., Warren HR., Weir DR., Weiss S., Wetherill L., Yaghootkar H., Yavas E., Jiang Y., Chen F., Zhan X., Zhang W., Zhao W., Zhao W., Zhou K., Amouyel P., Blankenberg S., Caulfield MJ., Chowdhury R., Cucca F., Deary IJ., Deloukas P., Di Angelantonio E., Ferrario M., Ferrières J., Franks PW., Frayling TM., Frossard P., Hall IP., Hayward C., Jansson J-H., Jukema JW., Kee F., Männistö S., Metspalu A., Munroe PB., Nordestgaard BG., Palmer CNA., Salomaa V., Sattar N., Spector T., Strachan DP., Understanding Society Scientific Group, EPIC-CVD, GSCAN, Consortium for Genetics of Smoking Behaviour, CHD Exome+ consortium None., van der Harst P., Zeggini E., Saleheen D., Butterworth AS., Wain LV., Abecasis GR., Danesh J., Tobin MD., Vrieze S., Liu DJ., Howson JMM.
Smoking is a major heritable and modifiable risk factor for many diseases, including cancer, common respiratory disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Fourteen genetic loci have previously been associated with smoking behaviour-related traits. We tested up to 235,116 single nucleotide variants (SNVs) on the exome-array for association with smoking initiation, cigarettes per day, pack-years, and smoking cessation in a fixed effects meta-analysis of up to 61 studies (up to 346,813 participants). In a subset of 112,811 participants, a further one million SNVs were also genotyped and tested for association with the four smoking behaviour traits. SNV-trait associations with P < 5 × 10-8 in either analysis were taken forward for replication in up to 275,596 independent participants from UK Biobank. Lastly, a meta-analysis of the discovery and replication studies was performed. Sixteen SNVs were associated with at least one of the smoking behaviour traits (P < 5 × 10-8) in the discovery samples. Ten novel SNVs, including rs12616219 near TMEM182, were followed-up and five of them (rs462779 in REV3L, rs12780116 in CNNM2, rs1190736 in GPR101, rs11539157 in PJA1, and rs12616219 near TMEM182) replicated at a Bonferroni significance threshold (P < 4.5 × 10-3) with consistent direction of effect. A further 35 SNVs were associated with smoking behaviour traits in the discovery plus replication meta-analysis (up to 622,409 participants) including a rare SNV, rs150493199, in CCDC141 and two low-frequency SNVs in CEP350 and HDGFRP2. Functional follow-up implied that decreased expression of REV3L may lower the probability of smoking initiation. The novel loci will facilitate understanding the genetic aetiology of smoking behaviour and may lead to the identification of potential drug targets for smoking prevention and/or cessation.