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Letter

Nature Genetics 40, 189–197 (1 February 2008) | doi:10.1038/ng.75

Six new loci associated with blood low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or triglycerides in humans

Sekar Kathiresan , Olle Melander , Candace Guiducci , Aarti Surti , No|[euml]|l P Burtt , Mark J Rieder , Gregory M Cooper , Charlotta Roos , Benjamin F Voight , Aki S Havulinna , Bj|[ouml]|rn Wahlstrand , Thomas Hedner , Dolores Corella , E Shyong Tai , Jose M Ordovas , G|[ouml]|ran Berglund , Erkki Vartiainen , Pekka Jousilahti , Bo Hedblad , Marja-Riitta Taskinen , Christopher Newton-Cheh , Veikko Salomaa , Leena Peltonen , Leif Groop , David M Altshuler & Marju Orho-Melander

Blood concentrations of lipoproteins and lipids are heritable risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Using genome-wide association data from three studies (n = 8,816 that included 2,758 individuals from the Diabetes Genetics Initiative specific to the current paper as well as 1,874 individuals from the FUSION study of type 2 diabetes and 4,184 individuals from the SardiNIA study of aging-associated variables reported in a companion paper in this issue) and targeted replication association analyses in up to 18,554 independent participants, we show that common SNPs at 18 loci are reproducibly associated with concentrations of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and/or triglycerides.