The new BP SNPs identified have similar genomic context to those previously-described, which were located 8.2%/20.0%/32.9%/38.8% in exon/UTR/intron/intergenic regions while novel SNPs identified in GERA were distributed 2.6%/23.1%/33.3%/41.0%, respectively, those from the GERA+ICBP meta-analysis 0%/2.8%/55.6%/41.7%, and those from the GERA+ICBP+UKB meta-analysis 2.5%/14.9%/41.5%/41.1% (Supplementary Table 4)37. Frequencies and variant types of lead SNPs are also similar to those previously described; for European ancestry, 85.9% of previously-described SNPs have minor allele frequencies (MAF)>0.10, compared to 89.7% of GERA-identified SNPs; 94.4% of GERA+ICBP SNPs; and 82.2% of GERA+ICBP+UKB SNPs. Comparing results across traits within GERA, the leading trait locus was more often PP for novel loci than before (24.7% PP for previously-described SNPs, versus 59.0%, 58.3%, and 41.9% PP for GERA, GERA+ICBP, and GERA+ICBP+UKB, respectively); this may reflect that earlier BP studies tested SBP/DBP, but not PP. We additionally demonstrated the significant effect of the summary BP SNP scores on time-to-onset of hypertension, enabled by GERA longitudinal EHR data. We note that a GERA hypertension GWAS produced no additional novel results (and results much less significant than for the continuous BP traits, as expected).
