Genome-wide Association Analyses Suggested a Novel Mechanism for Smoking Behavior Regulated by IL15

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the US. Although smoking behavior has a significant genetic determination, the specific genes and associated mechanisms underlying smoking behavior are largely unknown. Here, we performed a genome-wide association study on smoking behavior in 840 Caucasians, including 417 males and 423 females, in which we examined ∼380,000 SNPs. We found that a cluster of nine SNPs upstream from the IL15 gene were associated with smoking status in males, with the most significant SNP, rs4956302, achieving a p value (8.80×10(−8)) of genome-wide significance. Another SNP, rs17354547, that is highly conserved across multiple species, achieved a p value of 5.65×10(−5). These two SNPs, together with two additional SNPs (rs1402812 and rs4956396) were selected from the above nine SNPs for replication in an African-American sample containing 1,251 subjects, including 412 males and 839 females. The SNP rs17354547 was successfully replicated in the male subgroup of the replication sample; it was associated with smoking quantity (SQ), the Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI) and the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND), with p values of 0.031, 0.0046 and 0.019, respectively. In addition, a haplotype formed by rs17354547, rs1402812 and rs4956396 was also associated with SQ, HSI and FTND, achieving p values of 0.039, 0.0093 and 0.0093, respectively. To further confirm our findings, we performed an in silico replication study of the nine SNPs in a Framingham Heart Study sample containing 7,623 Caucasians from 1,731 families, among which, 3,491 subjects are males and 4,132 are females. Again, male-specific association with smoking status was observed, for which seven of the nine SNPs achieved significant p values (p<0.05) and two achieved marginally significant p values (p<0.10) in males. Several of the nine SNPs, including the highly conserved one across species, rs17354547, are located at potential transcription factor binding sites, suggesting transcription regulation as a possible function for these SNPs. Through this function, the SNPs may modulate gene expression of IL15, a key cytokine regulating immune function. As the immune system has long been recognized to influence drug addiction behavior, our association findings suggest a novel mechanism for smoking addiction involving immune modulation via the IL15 pathway.