Most human traits are complex: dissection of genetic variation for height, schizophrenia and motor neurone disease

Prof Peter Visscher, Professor and Chair of Quantitative Genetics, Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland

Driven by advances in genome technologies, the last 7 years have witnessed a revolution in our understanding of complex trait variation in human populations. Results from genome-wide association studies and whole-genome exome studies have shown that the mutational target in the genome for most traits appears to be very large, such that many genes are involved in explaining genetic variation. Genetic architecture, the joint distribution of the effect size and frequency of variants that segregate in the population, is becoming clearer and differs between traits. I will show new results from disparate complex traits including height, schizophrenia, motor neurone disease and gene methylation, to illustrate polygenicity and the power of experimental sample size.