A genome-wide association study of northwestern Europeans involves the C-type natriuretic peptide signaling pathway in the etiology of human height variation.

ABSTRACT: Northwestern Europeans are among the tallest of human populations. The increase in body height in these people appears to have reached a plateau, suggesting the ubiquitous presence of an optimal environment in which genetic factors may have exerted a particularly strong influence on human growth. Therefore, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of body height using 2.2 million markers in 10 074 individuals from three Dutch and one German population-based cohorts. Upon genotyping, the 12 most significantly height-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from this GWAS in 6912 additional individuals of Dutch and Swedish origin, a genetic variant (rs6717918) on chromosome 2q37.1 was found to be associated with height at a genome-wide significance level (P(combined) = 3.

SUBMITTER: Estrada K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2729669 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature