Genetic interaction between two VNTRs in the MAOA gene is associated with the nicotine dependence.

The present study combined the analysis of two transcriptional regulators, uVNTR and dVNTR, in the MAOA gene that is an enzyme responsible for the monoamine degradation and identified genetic interaction between these VNTRs in association with the nicotine dependence. The main impact is that when analyzing different populations in the genetic studies, the functionally meaningful variants should be combined rather than addressing individual elements separately (a mini polygenic risk score for a particular gene/locus). This combination is very rarely analyzed and therefore the study sets an example.