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. 2023 Oct 5;18(10):e0292068.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292068. eCollection 2023.

Assessing the associations between known genetic variants and substance use in people with HIV in the United States

Cameron B Haas  1 , Kristina M Jordahl  1 , Robin M Nance  2 , Bridget M Whitney  2 , Lu Wang  3 , Joseph A C Delaney  4 , Stephanie Ruderman  1 , Tongqiu Jia  1 , Wm Christopher Mathews  5 , Michael S Saag  6 , Sulggi A Lee  7 , Sonia Napravnik  8 , Jeffrey M Jacobson  9 , Geetanjali Chander  2   10 , Elizabeth M McCall  10 , Richard D Moore  10 , Kenneth H Mayer  11 , Shubhabrata Mukherjee  2 , Won Jun Lee  12 , Paul K Crane  2 , Heidi Crane  2 , Inga Peter  12 , Sara Lindström  1   13
Affiliations

Assessing the associations between known genetic variants and substance use in people with HIV in the United States

Cameron B Haas et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: The prevalence of substance use in people with HIV (PWH) in the United States is higher than in the general population and is an important driver of HIV-related outcomes. We sought to assess if previously identified genetic associations that contribute to substance use are also observed in a population of PWH.

Methods: We performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of alcohol, smoking, and cannabis use phenotypes in a multi-ancestry population of 7,542 PWH from the Center for AIDS Research Network of Integrated Clinical Systems (CNICS). We conducted multi-ancestry GWAS for individuals of African (n = 3,748), Admixed American (n = 1,334), and European (n = 2,460) ancestry. Phenotype data were self-reported and collected using patient reported outcomes (PROs) and three questions from AUDIT-C, an alcohol screening tool. We analyzed nine phenotypes: 1) frequency of alcohol consumption, 2) typical number of drinks on a day when drinking alcohol, 3) frequency of five or more alcoholic drinks in a 30-day period, 4) smoking initiation, 5) smoking cessation, 6) cigarettes per day, 7) cannabis use initiation, 8) cannabis use cessation, 9) frequency of cannabis use during the previous 30 days. For each phenotype we considered a) variants previously identified as associated with a substance use trait and b) novel associations.

Results: We observed evidence for effects of previously reported single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) related to alcohol (rs1229984, p = 0.001), tobacco (rs11783093, p = 2.22E-4), and cannabis use (rs2875907, p = 0.005). We also report two novel loci (19p13.2, p = 1.3E-8; and 20p11.21, p = 2.1E-8) associated with cannabis use cessation.

Conclusions: Our analyses contribute to understanding the genetic bases of substance use in a population with relatively higher rates of use compared to the general population.

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Conflict of interest statement

KMJ was employed by Bristol-Myers Squibb during the drafting of this manuscript. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. All other authors report no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flow diagram for sample inclusion based on genotype quality control, empirically assigned ancestry, and genotype imputation for samples with genotype data in CNICS.
AFR = African; AMR = Ad Mixed American; EAS = East Asian; EUR = European; SAS = South Asian MAF = Minor allele frequency.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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