CHRNA3 and lung cancer: Because rs16969968 was a functional SNP that changes signal transduction through CHRNA516, and since rs16969968 had an estimated R-square LD value of 0.98 with rs1051730, which was the most significant SNP associated with lung cancer risk in discovery and replication cohorts, we used rs16969968 as a surrogate for CHRNA3–CHRNA5 and to investigate the influence of rs16969968 on whole-genome gene expression level.