Genome-Wide Association Study of Medication Adherence in Chronic Diseases in the Korean Population

• Published in: Genomics & informatics Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 121 - 126
• Main Authors: Seo, Incheol, Suh, Seong-Il, Suh, Min-Ho, Baek, Won-Ki
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Korean
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: chronic disease; genome-wide association study; medication adherence; medication compliance
• ISSN: 1598-866X; 2234-0742

Medication adherence is generally defined as the extent of voluntary cooperation of a patient in taking medicine as prescribed. Adherence to long-term treatment with chronic disease is essential for reducing disease comorbidity and mortality. However, medication non-adherence in chronic disease averages 50%. This study was conducted a genome-wide association study to identify the genetic basis of medication adherence. A total of 235 medication non-adherents and 1,067 medication adherents with hypertension or diabetes were used from the Korean Association Resource project data according to the self-reported treatment status of each chronic disease, respectively. We identified four single nucleotide polymorphisms with suggestive genome-wide association. The most significant single nucleotide polymorphism was rs6978712 (chromosome 7, $p=4.87{\times}10^{-7}$), which is located proximal to the GCC1 gene, which was previously implicated in decision-making capability in drug abusers. Two suggestive single nucleotide polymorphisms were in strong linkage disequilibrium ($r^2$ > 0.8) with rs6978712. Thus, in the aspect of decision-making in adherence behavior, the association between medication adherence and three loci proximal to the GCC1 gene seems worthy of further research. However, to overcome a few limitations in this study, defining the standardized phenotype criteria for self-reported adherence should be performed before replicating association studies.