Monoamine oxidases and alcoholism. II. Studies in alcoholic families

✍ Scribed by Suarez, B. K. ;Hampe, C. L. ;Parsian, A. ;Cloninger, C. R.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 831 KB
• Volume: 60
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0148-7299
• DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.1320600512

✦ Synopsis

Thirty-five alcoholic families have been studied to investigate the relationship between DNA markers at the monoamine oxidase (MAO) loci and 1) platelet activity levels and 2) alcoholism. A quantitative linkage analysis failed to reveal any evidence that the variation in activity levels cosegregates with the DNA markers. A sib-pair analysis did not reveal a significant excess of MA0 haplotype sharing among alcoholic sibs, although the deviation from random sharing was in the direction consistent with an X-linked component. A reanalysis of platelet MA0 activity levels in a subset of these families revealed that the lower levels previously found in alcoholics is more likely due to the differences between males and females. Only among males and only when a "broad" definition of alcoholism is used (and MA0 activity levels are transformed to normality) does it appear that alcoholics have depressed activities compared to nonalcoholics. Finally, when the confounding due to gender difference is removed, no differences between type I and type I1 alcoholics are found in these families.