previously, the number of loci reaching genome-wide significance increases with sample size (Figure 2), and, where there is a broad range of sample sizes, the increase appears to be approximately linear. Furthermore, if we omit the largest study and use the remaining studies to estimate the linear relationship between effective sample size and number of genome-wide significant loci, we can predict the number of loci that should reach genome-wide significance in the largest study. As seen in Figure 2, the observed number of loci in the largest study matches (for lipids) or exceeds (for height and blood pressure) the predicted number of loci.
