The Genetic Architecture of Gene Expression in Peripheral Blood.

ABSTRACT: We analyzed the mRNA levels for 36,778 transcript expression traits (probes) from 2,765 individuals to comprehensively investigate the genetic architecture and degree of missing heritability for gene expression in peripheral blood. We identified 11,204 cis and 3,791 trans independent expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) by using linear mixed models to perform genome-wide association analyses. Furthermore, using information on both closely and distantly related individuals, heritability was estimated for all expression traits. Of the set of expressed probes (15,966), 10,580 (66%) had an estimated narrow-sense heritability (h²) greater than zero with a mean (median) value of 0.192 (0.142). Across these probes, on average the proportion of genetic variance explained by all eQT

SUBMITTER: Lloyd-Jones LR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5294670 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature