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Male-pattern baldness susceptibility locus at 20p11

Abstract

We conducted a genome-wide association study for androgenic alopecia in 1,125 men and identified a newly associated locus at chromosome 20p11.22, confirmed in three independent cohorts (n = 1,650; OR = 1.60, P = 1.1 × 10−14 for rs1160312). The one man in seven who harbors risk alleles at both 20p11.22 and AR (encoding the androgen receptor) has a sevenfold-increased odds of androgenic alopecia (OR = 7.12, P = 3.7 × 10−15).

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Figure 1: Association between SNPs near chromosome 20p11.22 and androgenic alopecia.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the cooperation and dedication of the study participants and the personnel at the recruitment centers and core facilities. We would like to acknowledge the genotyping contributions of D. Smyth and J. Todd. This study was funded in part by GlaxoSmithKline; deCODE Genetics; the Wellcome Trust; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (grant to Guys' and St. Thomas' Hospitals and King's College London); the Chronic Disease Research Foundation; the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (J.B.R.) and the Sixth Framework Program of the EU contract number 018827 (Polygene).

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

V.M., P.V., G.W. and D.W. designed and implemented the CoLaus Study and the primary nested male-pattern baldness study. J.B.R., F.G., L.A.K., H.S., K. Stefansson, T.D.S. and V.M. designed the final study with appropriate replication datasets. J.B.R., X.Y., F.G., D.W., K. Song and V.M. analyzed the data. J.B.R., V.B., D.G., G.W., P.V., D.W., K.K.H.A., L.A.K., B.W., U.T., A.K., T.R., P.S., T.D.S. and V.M. contributed to data collection and phenotype definitions. V.B., G.W., T.D.S. and V.M. obtained funding. N.S. and P.D. performed genotyping for the women from the TwinsUK cohort. J.B.R. wrote the first draft of the paper and all authors made important contributions to the final version of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tim D Spector.

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Competing interests

Xin Yuan, Dawn Waterworth, Kijoung Song and Vincent Mooser are full-time employees of GlaxoSmithKline. Peter Vollenweider and Gérard Waeber received financial support from GlaxoSmithKline to build the CoLaus study. Frank Geller, Bragi Walters, Unnur Thorsteinsdottir, Augustine Kong, Thorunn Rafnar, Patrick Sulem, Hrein Stefansson and Kari Stefansson are full-time employees of deCODE genetics.

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Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Figures 1 and 2 (PDF 62 kb)

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Richards, J., Yuan, X., Geller, F. et al. Male-pattern baldness susceptibility locus at 20p11. Nat Genet 40, 1282–1284 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.255

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