ArticleNature communications2025
Combined genome-wide association study of facial traits in Europeans increases explained variance and improves prediction.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Exploring the association between genetic polymorphisms in FGFR2 and children's facial morphology.Head & face medicine · 2026Article
- Epigenetic and polygenic contributions to body mass index: a validation study of predictive models.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Article
- Forensic genetics in the omics era.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- The craniofacial shape of modern humans embodies genomic signatures of evolution, diversity, and clinical conditions.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Combined genome-wide association study of facial traits in Europeans increases explained variance and improves prediction.Nature communications · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Facial appearance, one of the most recognizable and heritable human traits, exhibits substantial variation across individuals within and between populations due to its complex genetic underpinning, which remains largely elusive. Here, we report a combined genome-wide association study (C-GWAS) of 946 facial features derived from 44 landmarks obtained from 3D digital facial images of 11,662 individuals of European descent. We identify 253 unlinked single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across 188 distinct genetic loci significantly associated with facial variation, including 64 SNPs at 62 novel loci and 33 novel SNPs within 29 previously reported face loci that are in very low LD with the previously reported top SNPs. Together, these SNPs account for up to 7.9% of the facial variation per trait, marking an average 2.25-fold increase over previous estimates. Cross-ancestry replication in 9,674 Chinese confirms the effect of 70% of these SNPs. A 382-SNPs prediction model of five nose traits achieves an AUC of 0.67 for individual re-identification from nose images. DNA predicted faces of archaic humans differ more from those of Europeans than from Africans. In genetically modelled Neanderthal faces, 15 of 16 DNA-predicted facial features are in line with skull evidence. Ten DNA-predicted facial features differentiate Neanderthals from Denisovans. Overall, this study substantially enhances our genetic understanding of human facial variation and provides improvements of genetic face prediction in modern and archaic humans.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.