GENETIC RESEARCH WITH INTERMEDIATE PHENOTYPES: PHENOCOPIES, PERSPECTIVES AND PITFALLSAddiction 102 (11), 1696–1697.
In his paper, Gunter Schumann provides an excellent review of the progress and perspectives of an approach that tries to link genetic variance with heritable biological phenotypes (‘endophenotypes’) rather than complex disease categories .
In complex disorders such as alcohol dependence, it may be extremely complicated to identify the multitude of genetic interactions that dispose a certain individual to develop addictive behaviour, while Schumann and collaborators successfully discovered a gene that interacts with circumscribed phenotypes such as glutamate transporter expression, excessive alcohol intake and acamprosate response . This discovery may help to elucidate individual differences in medication response and thus help to establish individually tailored treatment algorithms in alcohol-dependent patients.
However, while such studies have helped substantially to shed light on previously unknown genotype–phenotype interactions, studies with other genes have yielded controversial results.
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