ArticleAmerican journal of human genetics2015
Adjusting for heritable covariates can bias effect estimates in genome-wide association studies.
Article in American journal of human genetics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 185 papers, 26 of them syntheses 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.
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Who cites it
185 citing papers in PubMed, 26 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Genome-wide genetic overlap between fear-based disorders and generalised anxiety disorder.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- The genetic architecture of brainstem structures.Nature communications · 2025Pooled it
- The Genetic Architecture of the Human Corpus Callosum and its Subregions.Nature communications · 2025Pooled it
- Multi-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies discovers 67 new loci associated with chronic back pain.Nature communications · 2025Pooled it
- The impact of assortative mating, participation bias and socioeconomic status on the polygenic risk of behavioural and psychiatric traits.Nature human behaviour · 2024Pooled it
- Genetic insights into human cortical organization and development through genome-wide analyses of 2,347 neuroimaging phenotypes.Nature genetics · 2023Pooled it
- Bone mineral density loci specific to the skull portray potential pleiotropic effects on craniosynostosis.Communications biology · 2023Pooled it
- Discovery of genomic loci associated with sleep apnea risk through multi-trait GWAS analysis with snoring.Sleep · 2023Pooled it
- Discerning asthma endotypes through comorbidity mapping.Nature communications · 2022Pooled it
- Genome-Wide Association Study for eGFR in a Taiwanese Population.Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN · 2022Pooled it
- Genetic loci and prioritization of genes for kidney function decline derived from a meta-analysis of 62 longitudinal genome-wide association studies.Kidney international · 2022Pooled it
- Comprehensive genetic analysis of the human lipidome identifies loci associated with lipid homeostasis with links to coronary artery disease.Nature communications · 2022Pooled it
- Is Genetic Risk for Sleep Apnea Causally Linked With Glaucoma Susceptibility?Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2022Pooled it
- Bi-ancestral depression GWAS in the Million Veteran Program and meta-analysis in >1.2 million individuals highlight new therapeutic directions.Nature neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Approximate conditional phenotype analysis based on genome wide association summary statistics.Scientific reports · 2021Pooled it
- The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2020Pooled it
- The influence of rare variants in circulating metabolic biomarkers.PLoS genetics · 2020Pooled it
- Meta-Analysis of Genomewide Association Studies Reveals Genetic Variants for Hip Bone Geometry.Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research · 2019Pooled it
- Protein-coding variants implicate novel genes related to lipid homeostasis contributing to body-fat distribution.Nature genetics · 2019Pooled it
- Genome Analyses of >200,000 Individuals Identify 58 Loci for Chronic Inflammation and Highlight Pathways that Link Inflammation and Complex Disorders.American journal of human genetics · 2018Pooled it
125 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Abstract
In recent years, a number of large-scale genome-wide association studies have been published for human traits adjusted for other correlated traits with a genetic basis. In most studies, the motivation for such an adjustment is to discover genetic variants associated with the primary outcome independently of the correlated trait. In this report, we contend that this objective is fulfilled when the tested variants have no effect on the covariate or when the correlation between the covariate and the outcome is fully explained by a direct effect of the covariate on the outcome. For all other scenarios, an unintended bias is introduced with respect to the primary outcome as a result of the adjustment, and this bias might lead to false positives. Here, we illustrate this point by providing examples from published genome-wide association studies, including large meta-analysis of waist-to-hip ratio and waist circumference adjusted for body mass index (BMI), where genetic effects might be biased as a result of adjustment for body mass index. Using both theory and simulations, we explore this phenomenon in detail and discuss the ramifications for future genome-wide association studies of correlated traits and diseases.
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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.