Genome partitioning of genetic variation for complex traits using common SNPs

Peter Visscher and colleagues report an analysis to partition the genetic variation for several complex traits onto chromosome segments and find that the variation explained is approximately proportional to the total length of genes included within a chromosome segment. They estimate that ~45%, ~17%, ~25% and ~21% of the phenotypic variation, respectively, for height, body mass index, von Willebrand factor and QT interval is tagged by common SNPs, and they partition this variation by chromosome and chromosome segments.