Exome-wide association study (ExWAS) of smoking behavior in diverse ancestries

Genetic associations of rare coding variants often directly pinpoint causal genes and inform direction of association and hence have potential to identify new drug targets. Rare variants are often restricted to specific ancestries due to population phenomena such as genetic drift. Thus, studying diverse populations is critical for human genetics-based drug target discovery. Here we present an exome-wide association study (ExWAS) of smoking behavior in diverse ancestries that led to the discovery of a novel target for smoking addiction—CHRNB3.