This Month in The Journal

For many years, the primary approach for studying complex genetic traits has been the genome-wide association study (GWAS). More recently, reasoning that gene expression patterns might provide deeper insight into the biology underlying a trait of interest, investigators have begun to turn to transcriptome-wide association studies (TWASs). A TWAS integrates eQTL analysis with GWAS to identify genes whose genetically regulated expression associates with a given trait or disease risk. The resultant list of prioritized genes (and tissues) can then be used for developing and testing hypotheses related to the phenotype of interest.

Source: The American Journal of Human Genetics - July 31, 2019 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Sarah Ratzel, Sara B. Cullinan Tags: Editors' Corner Source Type: research