Heritability of liver enzyme levels estimated from genome-wide SNP data

Variation in the liver enzyme levels in humans is moderately heritable, as indicated by twin-family studies. At present, genome-wide association studies have traced <2% of the variance back to genome-wide significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We estimated the SNP-based heritability of levels of three liver enzymes (gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT); alanine aminotransferase (ALT); and aspartate aminotransferase (AST)) using genome-wide SNP data in a sample of 5421 unrelated Dutch individuals. Two estimation methods for SNP-based heritability were compared, one based on the dist... Mehr ...