Analysis of the genetic basis of height in large Jewish nuclear families.

Despite intensive study, most of the specific genetic factors that contribute to variation in human height remain undiscovered. We conducted a family-based linkage study of height in a unique cohort of very large nuclear families from a founder (Jewish) population. This design allowed for increased...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Danny Zeevi, Joshua S Bloom, Meru J Sadhu, Adi Ben Yehuda, David Zangen, Ephrat Levy-Lahad, Leonid Kruglyak
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2019-07-01
Series:PLoS Genetics
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1008082
Description
Summary:Despite intensive study, most of the specific genetic factors that contribute to variation in human height remain undiscovered. We conducted a family-based linkage study of height in a unique cohort of very large nuclear families from a founder (Jewish) population. This design allowed for increased power to detect linkage, compared to previous family-based studies. Loci we identified in discovery families could explain an estimated lower bound of 6% of the variance in height in validation families. We showed that these loci are not tagging known common variants associated with height. Rather, we suggest that the observed signals arise from variants with large effects that are rare globally but elevated in frequency in the Jewish population.
ISSN:1553-7390
1553-7404