Novel Loci for Blood Pressure Using Gene-alcohol Interactions and 1000g Imputed Data

Alcohol consumption has a complex relationship with blood pressure (BP). Whereas heavy alcohol consumption is associated with high BP, moderate alcohol consumption is associated with unchanged or modestly lower BP. We performed genome-wide meta-analysis of single SNP x alcohol drinking status interaction on systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP), mean arterial (MAP), and pulse (PP) blood pressure using 1000G imputed data. Our preliminary results comprise 23 European ancestry studies, including 87,098 individuals with known drinking status. Interaction associations were preformed using linear regression with main and interaction effects and accounting for family structure as needed. Meta-analyses were performed with METAL, for a 2 degrees of freedom joint test, after applying study- and meta-based genomic control adjustments. Results were further filtered if the meta-analysis N u003c 5,000 individuals or if the number of cohorts contributing to meta-analysis were u003c 3 for each SNP. For DBP, six novel loci (TRAF3IP1, A...