GWAS identifies two susceptibility loci for lamotrigine-induced skin rash in patients with epilepsy

Purpose: Lamotrigine (LTG)-induced maculopapular eruption (MPE) often causes treatment discontinuation and rising burdens on current healthcare systems. We conducted a genome-wide association study to identify novel susceptibility loci associated with LTG-induced MPE in patients with epilepsy. Materials and methods: We enrolled patients with LTG-induced MPE (n=34) and utilized the Korea Association Resource project cohort as a control group (n = 1214). We explored associations between LTG-induced MPE and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) through imputation and replicated these associations in samples from 59 LTG-induced MPE cases and 98 LTG tolerant-controls. Results: We found two novel SNPs associated with LTG-induced MPE: rs12668095 near CRAMP1L/TMEM204/IFT140/HN1L (P=4.89 x 10(-7)) and rs79007183 near TNS3 (P=3.15 x 10(-10)), both of which were replicated in an independent cohort. Conclusion: These two validated SNPs may be good candidate markers for predicting LTG-induced MPE in epilepsy patients, although further experimental validation is needed. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.