Bone Mineral Density (BMD) is a highly heritable trait, but genome-wide association studies have identified few genetic risk factors. Epidemiological studies suggest associations between BMD and several traits and diseases, but...
The genetic landscape of diseases associated with changes in bone mineral density (BMD), such as osteoporosis, is only partially understood. Here, we explored data from 3,823 mutant mouse strains for BMD, a measure that is...
Antagonist pleiotropy, where a gene exerts a beneficial effect at early stages and a deleterious effect later on in an animal's life, may explain the evolutionary persistence of devastating genetic diseases such as Huntington's...
Mendelian randomization (MR) is an epidemiological technique that uses genetic variants to distinguish correlation from causation in observational data. The reliability of a MR investigation depends on the validity of the...
In cross-platform analyses of 174 metabolites, we identify 499 associations (P < 4.9 × 10-10) characterized by pleiotropy, allelic heterogeneity, large and nonlinear effects and enrichment for nonsynonymous variation. We...
Valid estimation of a causal effect using instrumental variables requires that all of the instruments are independent of the outcome conditional on the risk factor of interest and any confounders. In Mendelian randomization...
Pdr5, a member of the extensive ABC transporter superfamily, is representative of a clinically relevant subgroup involved in pleiotropic drug resistance. Pdr5 and its homologues drive drug efflux through uncoupled hydrolysis of...
Mendelian randomization is the use of genetic variants as instruments to assess the existence of a causal relationship between a risk factor and an outcome. A Mendelian randomization analysis requires a set of genetic variants...
BACKGROUND: Genetic variants within nearly 1000 loci are known to contribute to modulation of blood lipid levels. However, the biological pathways underlying these associations are frequently unknown, limiting understanding of...
Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a severe liver disease of unknown etiology leading to fibrotic destruction of the bile ducts and ultimately to the need for liver transplantation. We compared 3,789 PSC cases of European...
BACKGROUND: Despite a modest association between tobacco smoking and breast cancer risk reported by recent epidemiological studies, it is still equivocal whether smoking is causally related to breast cancer risk. METHODS: We...
Urinary biomarkers are associated with cardiovascular disease, but the nature of these associations is not well understood. We performed multivariable-adjusted regression models to assess associations of random spot measurements...
Mendelian randomization is a powerful tool for inferring the presence, or otherwise, of causal effects from observational data. However, the nature of genetic variants is such that pleiotropy remains a barrier to valid causal...
BACKGROUND: A robust method for Mendelian randomization does not require all genetic variants to be valid instruments to give consistent estimates of a causal parameter. Several such methods have been developed, including a...
The total number of acquired melanocytic nevi on the skin is strongly correlated with melanoma risk. Here we report a meta-analysis of 11 nevus GWAS from Australia, Netherlands, UK, and USA comprising 52,506 individuals. We...
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether endogenous testosterone has a causal role in thromboembolism, heart failure, and myocardial infarction. DESIGN: Two sample mendelian randomisation study using genetic variants as instrumental...
Over a decade of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have led to the finding of extreme polygenicity of complex traits. The phenomenon that "all genes affect every complex trait" complicates Mendelian Randomization (MR)...
The number of Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses including large numbers of genetic variants is rapidly increasing. This is due to the proliferation of genome-wide association studies, and the desire to obtain more precise...