- A multi-ethnic genome-wide association study identifies novel loci for non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate on 2p24.2, 17q23 and 19q13.
A multi-ethnic genome-wide association study identifies novel loci for non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate on 2p24.2, 17q23 and 19q13.
Orofacial clefts (OFCs), which include non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P), are among the most common birth defects in humans, affecting approximately 1 in 700 newborns. CL/P is phenotypically heterogeneous and has a complex etiology caused by genetic and environmental factors. Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified at least 15 risk loci for CL/P. As these loci do not account for all of the genetic variance of CL/P, we hypothesized the existence of additional risk loci. We conducted a multiethnic GWAS in 6480 participants (823 unrelated cases, 1700 unrelated controls and 1319 case-parent trios) with European, Asian, African and Central and South American ancestry. Our GWAS revealed novel associations on 2p24 near FAM49A, a gene of unknown function (P = 4.22 × 10