Genome-wide association study SNPs in the human genome diversity project populations: does selection affect unlinked SNPs with shared trait associations?

ABSTRACT: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 2,000 trait-SNP associations, and the number continues to increase. GWAS have focused on traits with potential consequences for human fitness, including many immunological, metabolic, cardiovascular, and behavioral phenotypes. Given the polygenic nature of complex traits, selection may exert its influence on them by altering allele frequencies at many associated loci, a possibility which has yet to be explored empirically. Here we use 38 different measures of allele frequency variation and 8 iHS scores to characterize over 1,300 GWAS SNPs in 53 globally distributed human populations. We apply these same techniques to evaluate SNPs grouped by trait association. We find that groups of SNPs associated with pigmentation, blood pr

SUBMITTER: Casto AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3017115 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature