ReviewPLoS genetics2008
Data and theory point to mainly additive genetic variance for complex traits.
Review in PLoS genetics, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 522 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
522 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Loci on chromosome 20 interact with rs16969968 to influence cigarettes per day in European ancestry individuals.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2024Pooled it
- Article
- Hiding in plain sight: uncovering the genetic basis of complex phenotypes through low-risk groups.Genetics · 2026Article
- Efficiency under epistasis of haplotype-based genomic selection for pure line breeding.Heredity · 2026Article
- Correlations between causal effect sizes of proximal SNPs vary with functional annotations and implicate stabilizing selection.Nature genetics · 2026Article
- A pre-train and fine-tune framework for adaptive boosting of pre-trained polygenic risk scores.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Deviations from genetic additivity driven by rare variants at biobank scale.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Unveiling the interactions between design optimization, modeling strategies, and spatial analysis in genomic selection.TAG. Theoretical and applied genetics. Theoretische und angewandte Genetik · 2026Article
- Implications of dominance deviations for reproductive and morphological traits in the genetic management of the Pura Raza Española horse.Genetics, selection, evolution : GSE · 2026Article
- Integrating genomic additive relationship matrices improves the efficiency in diploid banana breeding.Horticulture research · 2026Article
- Pervasive context-dependent effects in the genetic architecture of complex and quantitative traits revealed by a powerful multiparent mapping population in yeast.PLoS genetics · 2026Article
- Quantifying reference alignment bias in functional genomics analyses.Cell reports methods · 2026Article
- Enhancing alfalfa breeding through genomic prediction with exotic germplasm resources.BMC plant biology · 2026Article
- The hidden geometry of breeding constraints.Nature plants · 2026Review
- Genomic partitioning and functional dissection of inbreeding depression for stature in Brown Swiss cattle.Genetics, selection, evolution : GSE · 2026Article
- Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Non-additive transcriptional regulation underpins an additive survival trait in populations of Drosophila selected for increased post infection survival.BMC ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Discovery and characterization of gene-by-environment and epistatic genetic effects in a vertebrate model.Cell genomics · 2026Article
- Mount Fuji's stubby peak: the genotypic density of additive landscapes near maximal fitness.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Combinatorial effects of gene dosage, polygenic background and environment on complex traits.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
462 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The relative proportion of additive and non-additive variation for complex traits is important in evolutionary biology, medicine, and agriculture. We address a long-standing controversy and paradox about the contribution of non-additive genetic variation, namely that knowledge about biological pathways and gene networks imply that epistasis is important. Yet empirical data across a range of traits and species imply that most genetic variance is additive. We evaluate the evidence from empirical studies of genetic variance components and find that additive variance typically accounts for over half, and often close to 100%, of the total genetic variance. We present new theoretical results, based upon the distribution of allele frequencies under neutral and other population genetic models, that show why this is the case even if there are non-additive effects at the level of gene action. We conclude that interactions at the level of genes are not likely to generate much interaction at the level of variance.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.