Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified hundreds of loci associated with complex human diseases and traits (Manolio et al., 2009). GWAS test for association with dichotomous or quantitative traits at millions of SNPs across the genome and can identify variants many hundreds of kilobases away from any known gene. The next challenge in human genetics will be to identify the causal variants and genes responsible for disease association at the many disease-associated loci identified from GWAS. An associated region may contain only a single strongly associated SNP, or more commonly, a set of SNPs with varying degrees of association due to local linkage disequilibrium (LD) patterns. When examining results from a GWAS, it is important to visually inspect regions showing association to determine the extent of the association signal and the position relative to nearby genes. Genes several hundred kb from an associated SNP may be functionally relevant (Loos et al., 2008). We have developed a web-based tool that provides graphical display of locus-specific association results and gives an overview of the extent of LD and the position relative to nearby genes and local recombination hotspots.
