Common variants. In addition to the gradual increase in gene discovery due to exome sequencing, there is a field of human genetics developing in parallel that we have not paid much attention to recently. The role of common genetic variants or Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) was initially limited to genome-wide association studies, looking at single variants individually. However, more recently, common variants have been assessed jointly in various diseases, resulting in so-called polygenic scores. In a recent publication in Nature, the polygenic contribution to neurodevelopmental disorders is evaluated. Interestingly, there seems to be a very robust contribution of common variants in neurodevelopmental disorders, even in patients with known de novo variants. Here is a brief discussion on why common variants start getting interesting for the neurogenetics field again. Continue reading →