ArticlePLoS genetics2017
Phenome-wide heritability analysis of the UK Biobank.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 143 papers, 5 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.
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.
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Who cites it
143 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Incorporating functional priors improves polygenic prediction accuracy in UK Biobank and 23andMe data sets.Nature communications · 2021Pooled it
- Structural brain imaging studies offer clues about the effects of the shared genetic etiology among neuropsychiatric disorders.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Sex-stratified genome-wide association study of multisite chronic pain in UK Biobank.PLoS genetics · 2021Pooled it
- Multitrait genome association analysis identifies new susceptibility genes for human anthropometric variation in the GCAT cohort.Journal of medical genetics · 2018Pooled it
- A multiethnic genome-wide association study of primary open-angle glaucoma identifies novel risk loci.Nature communications · 2018Pooled it
- Revealing genetic foundations underlying cardiometabolic traits: integrating twin and GWAS data in Asian populations.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Article
- Genetic mechanisms of mitotic error in 840,853 blood genomes.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Optimized phenotype definitions boost GWAS power.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Gene × sex interactions on cognition in the Philadelphia neurodevelopmental cohort.Biology of sex differences · 2026Article
- Characterizing the Uncertainty, Misclassification and Inconsistency of Polygenic Prediction.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Sex-stratified genetic regulators of cytokine production in the Dutch and Tanzanian populations.HGG advances · 2026Article
- Effects of testosterone on gene expression in males and females across 40 human tissues.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Genomics in Health and Biomedicine.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Sex-Specific Genetic Architecture and Comorbidities of Alcohol Use Behaviors.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Polygenic risk score for type 2 diabetes shows context-dependent effects across populations.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Polygenic prediction of body mass index and obesity through the life course and across ancestries.Nature medicine · 2025Article
- Lessons in adjusting for genetic confounding in population research on education and health.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Interpreting SNP heritability in admixed populations.Genetics · 2025Article
- Sex-specific genetics underlie increased chronic pain risk in women: genome-wide association studies from the UK Biobank.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Article
- Improvement of polygenic modeling of blood pressure traits using lifestyle information in the UK Biobank.Genetics · 2025Article
83 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Heritability estimation provides important information about the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to phenotypic variation, and provides an upper bound for the utility of genetic risk prediction models. Recent technological and statistical advances have enabled the estimation of additive heritability attributable to common genetic variants (SNP heritability) across a broad phenotypic spectrum. Here, we present a computationally and memory efficient heritability estimation method that can handle large sample sizes, and report the SNP heritability for 551 complex traits derived from the interim data release (152,736 subjects) of the large-scale, population-based UK Biobank, comprising both quantitative phenotypes and disease codes. We demonstrate that common genetic variation contributes to a broad array of quantitative traits and human diseases in the UK population, and identify phenotypes whose heritability is moderated by age (e.g., a majority of physical measures including height and body mass index), sex (e.g., blood pressure related traits) and socioeconomic status (education). Our study represents the first comprehensive phenome-wide heritability analysis in the UK Biobank, and underscores the importance of considering population characteristics in interpreting heritability.
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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.