Abstract

Opioid use disorder continues to be a health concern with a high rate of opioid related deaths occurring worldwide. Medication Assisted Treatments (MAT) have been shown to reduce opioid withdrawal, cravings and opioid use, however variability exists in individual’s treatment outcomes. Sex-specific differences have been reported in opioid use patterns, polysubstance use and health and social functioning. Candidate gene studies investigating methadone dose as an outcome have identified several candidate genes and only five genome-wide associations studies have been conducted for MAT outcomes. This study aimed to identify genetic variants associated with MAT outcomes through genome-wide association study (GWAS) and test the association between genetic variants previously associated with methadone dose through a polygenic risk score (PRS). Study outcomes include: continued opioid use, relapse, methadone dose and opioid overdose. No genome-wide significance SNPs or sex-specific results were identified. The PRS identified statistically significant results (p < 0.05) for the outcome of methadone dose (R2 = 3.45 × 10–3). No other PRS was statistically significant. This study provides evidence for association between a PRS and methadone dose. More research on the PRS to increase the variance explained is needed before it can be used as a tool to help identify a suitable methadone dose within this population.

Details

Title
A genome-wide association, polygenic risk score and sex study on opioid use disorder treatment outcomes
Author
McEvoy, Alannah 1 ; Chawar, Caroul 1 ; Lamri, Amel 2 ; Hudson, Jacqueline 1 ; Minuzzi, Luciano 1 ; Marsh, David C. 3 ; Thabane, Lehana 4 ; Paterson, Andrew D. 5 ; Samaan, Zainab 1 

 McMaster University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, Hamilton, Canada (GRID:grid.25073.33) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8227) 
 McMaster University, Department of Medicine, Hamilton, Canada (GRID:grid.25073.33) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8227) 
 NOSM University, Sudbury, Canada (GRID:grid.436533.4) (ISNI:0000 0000 8658 0974) 
 Department of Health Research Method, Hamilton, Canada (GRID:grid.25073.33) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8227) 
 The Hospital for Sick Children, Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, Toronto, Canada (GRID:grid.430185.b); University of Toronto, Divisions of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Toronto, Canada (GRID:grid.17063.33) (ISNI:0000 0001 2157 2938) 
Pages
22360
Publication year
2023
Publication date
2023
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2902173015
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.