Polygenic score for cigarette smoking is associated with ever electronic‐cigarette use in a college‐aged sample.

Background and Aims: Electronic cigarette use has escalated rapidly in recent years, particularly among youth. Little is known about the genetic influences on e‐cigarette use. This study aimed to determine whether genetic risk for regular use of combustible cigarettes or for number of cigarettes smoked per day confers risk for ever e‐cigarette use or frequency of e‐cigarette use. Design, Setting, Participants, and Measurements: We used data from 9541 young adults from the Spit for Science longitudinal cohort study (2011–2019). Polygenic scores (PGS) of regular combustible cigarette use (PGS‐RCU) and cigarettes per day (PGS‐CPD) were constructed using summary statistics from the two largest available genome‐wide association study (GWAS) meta‐analysis of European ancestry and East Asian ancestry of combustible cigarette use and used to test whether the PGS of RCU or CPD predicted lifetime e‐cigarette use and frequency of past 30‐day e‐cigarette use in a diverse sample of young adults of African (AFR), Admixed American (AMR), East Asian (EAS), European (EUR), and South Asian (SAS) ancestry. Findings: The PGS‐RCU was associated with lifetime e‐cigarette use in the EUR sample (OR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.19–1.36, P = 7.53 × 10−12), but not in the other subsamples (ps > 0.12). This association remained significant after excluding regular combustible cigarette smokers (OR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.12–1.31, P = 3.36 × 10−6). There was no statistically significant association between PGS‐CPD and lifetime e‐cigarette use and neither the PGS‐RCU nor the PGS‐CPD were associated with frequency of e‐cigarette use in the past 30 days in any of the subsamples. Conclusions: Genetic factors associated with regular combustible cigarette use appear to be associated with ever e‐cigarette use in young adults. We did not find evidence for shared genetic factors influencing heaviness of use of combustible cigarettes and current e‐cigarette use frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]