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An exciting genome-wide association study in the British population for seven common diseases. This analysis confirms previously identified loci and provides strong evidence for many novel disease susceptibility loci.

Genotype and exome sequencing of 150,000 participants and whole-genome sequencing of 9,950 selected individuals recruited into the Mexico City Prospective Study constitute a valuable, publicly available resource of non-European sequencing data.

1000 Genomes imputation can increase the power of genome-wide association studies to detect genetic variants associated with human traits and diseases. Here, the authors develop a method to integrate and analyse low-coverage sequence data and SNP array data, and show that it improves imputation performance.

An exome-wide association study of six smoking phenotypes in up to 749,459 individuals identifies associations of rare coding variants in CHRNB2 that may reduce the likelihood of smoking.

Genomic studies often lack representation from diverse populations, limiting equitable insights. Here, the authors show that the BIG Initiative captures extensive genetic diversity and reveals ancestry-linked health disparities in a community-based Mid-South cohort.

Jonathan Marchini and colleagues with the Ox-GSK consortium report a meta-analysis for smoking phenotypes from 20 studies including 41,150 individuals, confirming an association at the CHRNA5–CHRNA3 locus on 15q25 to smoking quantity. They use imputation based on 1,000 Genomes Project Pilot 1 data to refine the association at this locus.

Whole-exome sequencing analysis of 454,787 individuals in the UK Biobank is used to examine the association of protein-coding variants with nearly 4,000 health-related traits, identifying 564 distinct genes with significant trait associations.

Jonathan Marchini and colleagues develop a new method for haplotype phasing, SHAPEIT3, capable of handling large data sets from biobanks containing >100,000 genotyped samples. They find that their method is fast and accurate, with a low switch error rate, and can be scaled to data sets from increasingly larger cohorts.

This study introduces the concept of Ancestry Components and shows that they can offer improved population stratification correction for geographically correlated traits. By using ancestry-aware polygenic score construction in admixed individuals, the authors find that effect sizes are conserved across ancestry groups.

Jonathan Marchini, Gonçalo Abecasis, Richard Durbin and colleagues describe the construction of a reference panel of human haplotypes from whole-genome sequencing data. They are able to use this to accurately impute genotypes at low minor allele frequency and present remote server resources for use by the community.

Victoria Hore, Jonathan Marchini and colleagues present a method for multiple-tissue gene expression studies aimed at uncovering gene networks linked to genetic variation. They apply their method to RNA sequencing data from adipose, skin and lymphoblastoid cell lines and identify several biologically relevant gene networks with a genetic basis.

Gonçalo Abecasis, Jonathan Marchini and colleagues report a pre-phasing strategy for genotype imputation in GWAS, which they show maintains accuracy while substantially lowering computational costs. Their approach has been implemented in both MACH and IMPUTE 2.0 software.

REGENIE is a whole-genome regression method based on ridge regression that enables highly parallelized analysis of quantitative and binary traits in biobank-scale data with reduced computational requirements.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis of individuals with clinically assessed or self-reported depression identifies 44 independent risk loci. Comparisons with other psychiatric disorders and candidate gene analyses provide new insights into major depressive disorder.

Genome-wide meta-analysis of SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and severity phenotypes in up to 756,646 samples identifies a rare protective variant proximal to ACE2. A 6-SNP genetic risk score provides additional predictive power when added to known risk factors.

A dataset of coding variation, derived from exome sequencing of nearly one million individuals from a range of ancestries, provides insight into rare variants and could accelerate the discovery of disease-associated genes and advance precision medicine efforts.

Although structural variation has been previously associated with autism spectrum disorders, this study reports a genome-wide significant association of common variants with susceptibility to this disorder group. The results implicate neuronal cell-adhesion molecules in the pathogenesis of this group of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Imputation uses genotype information from SNP arrays to infer the genotypes of missing markers. Here, the authors show that an imputation reference panel derived from whole-genome sequencing of 3,781 samples from the UK10K project improves the imputation accuracy and coverage of low frequency variants compared to existing methods.

Genome-wide association studies of brain imaging data from 8,428 individuals in UK Biobank show that many of the 3,144 traits studied are heritable, and genes associated with individual phenotypes are identified.

Deep phenotype and genome-wide genetic data from 500,000 individuals from the UK Biobank, describing population structure and relatedness in the cohort, and imputation to increase the number of testable variants to 96 million.

Trans-ethnic analyses of exome array data identify new risk loci for type 2 diabetes. Fine-mapping analyses using genome-wide association data show that the index coding variants represent the likely causal variants at only a subset of these loci.

Exome sequence data from 628,388 individuals was used to identify 24 risk loci in 40,208 carriers of clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential and link them to other conditions including COVID-19, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Nicole Soranzo and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association datasets identifying 22 associations to 8 clinically relevant hematological traits. They also identify a long-range haplotype at 12q24 that includes variants associated with platelet counts as well as coronary artery disease and shows evidence of a selective sweep in Europeans.

Genome-wide analyses identify variants in B3GALT5 and ST6GAL1 associated with influenza susceptibility. Knockdown of ST6GAL1 in cell culture reduces influenza infectivity, likely by interfering with the glycoprotein modifications required for viral entry.

Exome sequences from the first 49,960 participants in the UK Biobank highlight the promise of genome sequencing in large population-based studies and are now accessible to the scientific community.

Comparison of association signals in UK Biobank using different strategies for assessing genetic variation shows that whole-exome sequencing combined with array genotyping and imputation offers similar performance to whole-genome sequencing at a reduced cost.

Stroke is a multifactorial disease influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Here, the authors apply exome-wide association analysis to find rare coding variants associated with stroke in a Pakistani cohort, finding a significant association of a variant in NOTCH3 that is highly enriched in South Asians.

Fat distribution is associated with cardiometabolic disease, although it has been less well studied than overall obesity. In a multiancestry exome-sequencing study, the authors identified predicted loss-of-function mutations in INHBE associated with favorable fat distribution and protection from type 2 diabetes.

The UK IBD Genetics Consortium and the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2 report results of a genome-wide association study of ulcerative colitis. They identify three new loci associated with the disease, including the HNF4A region on 20q13.

Durable agonism of NPR1 achieved with a novel investigational monoclonal antibody could mirror the positive hemodynamic changes in blood pressure and heart failure identified in humans with lifelong exposure to NPR1 coding variants.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have become a key tool to discover genetic markers for complex traits; however, environmental factors that interact with genes are rarely considered. Here, the authors conduct a GWAS of obesity traits, and find that smoking may alter genetic susceptibilities.

Anterior Uveitis is a common inflammatory eye disease that can result in vision loss. Here, the authors perform GWAS and whole-exome analyses of Anterior Uveitis to identify the underlying genetics of HLA-B*27 positive and negative forms of the disease.

Results for the final phase of the 1000 Genomes Project are presented including whole-genome sequencing, targeted exome sequencing, and genotyping on high-density SNP arrays for 2,504 individuals across 26 populations, providing a global reference data set to support biomedical genetics.

An efficient haplotype-estimation algorithm that features linear complexity allows the rapid and accurate phasing of diploid genomes from trios, duos and unrelated samples.

Michael O'Donovan and colleagues present a genome-wide association study of schizophrenia in 479 cases and 2,937 controls, followed by replication in several cohorts. They report evidence for association for a susceptibility allele near ZNF804A.

Dominic Kwiatkowski and colleagues of the MalariaGEN and the WTCCC consortiums report a genome-wide analysis of severe malaria in The Gambia. They provide guidance for design of GWAS in African populations, and demonstrate the usefulness of multipoint imputation based on population-specific sequencing data.

Combining 32 genome-wide association studies with high-density imputation provides a comprehensive view of the genetic contribution to type 2 diabetes in individuals of European ancestry with respect to locus discovery, causal-variant resolution, and mechanistic insight.

Heart failure is a complex syndrome that is associated with many different underlying risk factors. Here, to increase power, the authors jointly analyse cases of heart failure of different aetiologies in a genome-wide association study and identify 11 loci of which ten had not been previously reported.

Haplotype information inferred by phasing is useful in genetic and genomic analysis. Here, the authors develop SHAPEIT4, a phasing method that exhibits sub-linear running time, provides accurate haplotypes and enables integration of external phasing information.

The goal of the 1000 Genomes Project is to provide in-depth information on variation in human genome sequences. In the pilot phase reported here, different strategies for genome-wide sequencing, using high-throughput sequencing platforms, were developed and compared. The resulting data set includes more than 95% of the currently accessible variants found in any individual, and can be used to inform association and functional studies.