Common disorders are quantitative traits.
After drifting apart for 100 years, the two worlds of genetics - quantitative genetics and molecular genetics - are finally coming together in genome-wide association (GWA) research, which shows that the heritability of complex traits and common disorders is due to multiple genes of small effect size. We highlight a polygenic framework, supported by recent GWA research, in which qualitative disorders can be interpreted simply as being the extremes of quantitative dimensions. Research that focuses on quantitative traits - including the low and high ends of normal distributions - could have far-reaching implications for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the problematic extremes of these traits.
Plomin
Robert
R
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, UK. Robert.Plomin@kcl.ac.uk
Haworth
Claire M A
CM
Davis
Oliver S P
OS
D000818:Animals; D004194:Disease / Q000235:genetics*; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005826:Genetics, Medical; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D006801:Humans; D008967:Molecular Biology; D020412:Multifactorial Inheritance; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable