Osteoarthritis susceptibility loci defined by genome scan meta-analysis

Genome scans for osteoarthritis (OA) have yielded inconsistent results. The absence of replication of linkage might be due to lack of power of individual studies. A meta-analysis of the published data was performed to assess evidence for linkage of OA across genome scan studies. Three OA whole-genome scans including 893 families with 3,000 affected individuals were used for genome scan meta-analysis (GSMA). A total of 5 bins lie above 95% confidence level (P = 0.05) and 1 bin is above 99% confidence level (P = 0.01) in OA GSMA; bins 7.6 (7q34–7q36.3, Psumrnk = 0.0035), 11.3 (11p12–11q13.4), 6.3 (6p21.1–6q15), 2.8 (2q31.1–2q34) and 15.3 (15q21.3–15q26.1). The highest summed rank was observed at bin 7.6. In conclusion, the OA GSMA has shown chromosome 7q34–7q36.3 with the highest summed rank and four additional loci with significant summed ranks across studies.