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The issue with SNPs is that they are generally common in the population, and a variant that is common will rarely have a big effect. If we look at GWAS studies,
by farresito 5y ago
The issue with SNPs is that they are generally common in the population, and a variant that is common will rarely have a big effect. If we look at GWAS studies, most of them do not explain much of the variance of a phenotype. It either is due to environment/epigenetics or we are not using the right data. Part of it is of course the former, but I'm betting on the latter. I'm not a researcher, so I could of course be very wrong.
- mbreese 5y agoThere is a difference in scale. For the research 23andme wants to do, they need to identify variants that occur in a significant part of the population (~1% or so). They need to do this because any potential drug/treatment would have to be developed for a big enough patient pool. Large population level genome studies like 1000 genomes and NIH All of Us studies are all aimed at finding those ~1% variants. But if you’re looking for what is going on in an individual, then yes… SNP chip data isn’t as informative as whole genome (or exome) sequencing.