Journal article
Genome-wide association study in almost 195,000 individuals identifies 50 previously unidentified genetic loci for eye color
- Abstract:
- Human eye color is highly heritable, but its genetic architecture is not yet fully understood. We report the results of the largest genome-wide association study for eye color to date, involving up to 192,986 European participants from 10 populations. We identify 124 independent associations arising from 61 discrete genomic regions, including 50 previously unidentified. We find evidence for genes involved in melanin pigmentation, but we also find associations with genes involved in iris morphology and structure. Further analyses in 1636 Asian participants from two populations suggest that iris pigmentation variation in Asians is genetically similar to Europeans, albeit with smaller effect sizes. Our findings collectively explain 53.2% (95% confidence interval, 45.4 to 61.0%) of eye color variation using common single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Overall, our study outcomes demonstrate that the genetic complexity of human eye color considerably exceeds previous knowledge and expectations, highlighting eye color as a genetically highly complex human trait.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 816.7KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1126/sciadv.abd1239
Authors
- Publisher:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Journal:
- Science Advances More from this journal
- Volume:
- 7
- Issue:
- 11
- Article number:
- eabd1239
- Publication date:
- 2021-03-10
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-01-25
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2375-2548
- Pmid:
-
33692100
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1167537
- Local pid:
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pubs:1167537
- Deposit date:
-
2021-04-22
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Simcoe et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- ©2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
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