GIANT consortium

GIANT: Genetic Investigation of ANthropometric Traits

The Genetic Investigation of ANthropometric Traits (GIANT) consortium is an international collaboration that seeks to identify genetic loci that modulate human body size and shape, including height and measures of obesity. The GIANT consortium is a collaboration between investigators from many different groups, institutions, countries, and studies, and the results represent their combined efforts. The primary approach has been meta-analysis of genome-wide association data and other large-scale genetic data sets. Anthropometric traits that have been studied by GIANT include body mass index (BMI), height, and traits related to waist circumference (such as waist-hip ratio adjusted for BMI, or WHRadjBMI). Thus far, the GIANT consortium has identified common genetic variants at hundreds of loci that are associated with anthropometric traits.

Data Release

We are releasing the summary data from our 2010 meta-analyses of GWA data, in order to enable other researchers to examine particular variants or loci for their evidence of association with anthropometric traits. The files include p-values and direction of effect at over 2 million directly genotyped or imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). To prevent the possibility of identification of individuals from these summary results, we are not releasing allele frequency data from our samples. A manuscript describing the rationale for releasing association data but not frequency data is in preparation.

Selected Recent Publications

Heid, I.M., Jackson, A.U., Randall, J.C., Winkler, T.W., Qi, L., Steinthorsdottir, V., Thorleifsson, G., Zillikens, M.C., Speliotes, E.K., Magi, R., et al. (2010). Meta-analysis identifies 13 new loci associated with waist-hip ratio and reveals sexual dimorphism in the genetic basis of fat distribution. Nat Genet 42, 949-960.

Lango Allen, H., Estrada, K., Lettre, G., Berndt, S.I., Weedon, M.N., Rivadeneira, F., Willer, C.J., Jackson, A.U., Vedantam, S., Raychaudhuri, S., et al. (2010). Hundreds of variants clustered in genomic loci and biological pathways affect human height. Nature 467, 832-838.

Lindgren, C.M., Heid, I.M., Randall, J.C., Lamina, C., Steinthorsdottir, V., Qi, L., Speliotes, E.K., Thorleifsson, G., Willer, C.J., Herrera, B.M., et al. (2009). Genome-wide association scan meta-analysis identifies three Loci influencing adiposity and fat distribution. PLoS Genet 5, e1000508.

Speliotes, E.K., Willer, C.J., Berndt, S.I., Monda, K.L., Thorleifsson, G., Jackson, A.U., Allen, H.L., Lindgren, C.M., Luan, J., Magi, R., et al. (2010). Association analyses of 249,796 individuals reveal 18 new loci associated with body mass index. Nat Genet 42, 937-948.

Willer, C.J., Speliotes, E.K., Loos, R.J., Li, S., Lindgren, C.M., Heid, I.M., Berndt, S.I., Elliott, A.L., Jackson, A.U., Lamina, C., et al. (2009). Six new loci associated with body mass index highlight a neuronal influence on body weight regulation. Nat Genet 41, 25-34.

Participating Cohorts and Research Groups

A growing list of collaborating cohorts and groups may be found here.