A Genome-Wide Association Study in the Japanese Population Identifies the 12q24 Locus for Habitual Coffee Consumption: the J-MICC Study.

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages worldwide, and its role in human health has received much attention. Although genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have investigated genetic variants associated with coffee consumption in European populations, no such study has yet been conducted in an Asian population. Here, we conducted a GWAS to identify common genetic variations that affected coffee consumption in a Japanese population of 11,261 participants recruited as a part of the Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort (J-MICC) study. Coffee consumption was collected using a self-administered questionnaire, and converted from categories to cups/day. In the discovery stage ( n = 6,312), we found 2 independent loci (12q24.12–13 and 5q33.3) that met suggestive significance ( P < 1 × 10 −6 ). In the replication stage ( n = 4,949), the lead variant for the 12q24.12–13 locus (rs2074356) was significantly associated with habitual coffee consumption ( P = 2.2 × 10 −6 ), whereas the lead variant for the 5q33.3 locus (rs1957553) was not ( P = 0.53). A meta-analysis of the discovery and replication populations, and the combined analysis using all subjects, revealed that rs2074356 achieved genome-wide significance ( P = 2.2 × 10 −16 for a meta-analysis). These findings indicate that the 12q24.12-13 locus is associated with coffee consumption among a Japanese population.