The opportunities to analyse the genetic variations related to the risk of addiction are of interest to forensics, who beside their involvement in drugs-related fatalities may also be required to assess driving and working ability as well as permanent invalidity due to drugs-related conditions. Several genetic variants have been shown to be associated with heroin addiction. The most investigated gene is OPMR1 that encode the μ-opioid receptor. The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of genetics variants in OPRM1 to the susceptibility to addiction.

Background:Alcoholism is a major health and social issue, a highly frequent disease and a cause of premature death. It is also the most expensive addictive disorder being related to high morbidity and mortality, violence, accidents, and social and legal problems. It is a quantitative disorder, where the combined incidence of environmental and multiple genetic factors varies from 1 subject to another. Recent association studies have identified several genes as candidates for alcoholism, including GABA(A) receptor genes, due to their role in mediating several behavioral effects of alcohol, such as motor incoordination, anxiolysis, sedation, and withdrawal. The proposed association between the 3' half of the gene encoding the alpha-2 subunit of GABA receptor (3'-GABRA2) and alcohol use disorders (AUDs) has received several independent confirmations.Methods:In this study, 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the 3'-GABRA2 gene, previously reported to be implicated in alcohol dependence, were used to evaluate the linkage between selected SNPs and AUDs in an Italian sample and to compare findings with those of previous studies.Results:No evidence of an association was found at the allele, genotype, haplotype, or diplotype levels between the 3'-GABRA2 polymorphisms investigated and alcoholism in 149 Italian alcoholics (98 alcohol dependents and 51 alcohol abusers) and 278 controls.Conclusions:Despite previous reports, we did not find an association between AUDs and 3'-GABRA2 polymorphisms. This is probably due to the minimal comorbidity of our Italian sample suggesting that this gene is implicated in polysubstance dependence rather than in alcoholism alone.

Addiction to drugs of abuse is the major health and social issue, for its morbidity and mortality, individual and society cost, violence and legal problems involvement. The susceptibility to addiction has a complex genetic basis characterized by phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity as well as polygenicity. Both linkage mapping and association mapping have identified susceptibility loci for addiction-related phenotypes.In this study we limit our focus to gamma-amino butyric acid A receptor alpha 2 (GABRA2), one of the candidate gene in addiction, in order to investigate the genetic susceptibility of alcoholism. 10 SNPs across the 30-GABRA2 were analyzed in an Italian sample of 149 cases and 278 healthy controls. No SNP and haplotype association of 30-GABRA2 with AUDs was found, in contrast to previous reports in other Caucasian populations. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

DNA recovered at a crime scene often results as damaged; this represents enormous difficulty for the correct typing because of fragmentation or the lack of DNA region of interest. In this work a set of biological samples was prepared and stored under different conditions; STRs and SNPs typing was performed at regular interval of time in order to study the effects of natural DNA degradation. Allelic/locus drop-out phenomenon for the higher molecular weight loci or no results were obtained for microsatellite analysis after 1 week. SNPs typing gave positive results depending on storage conditions and type of substrate; a nucleotide alteration (C to T) was observed for M269 locus in a sample after 3 months.