Thus, studies that adopt a more comprehensive approach, considering not just significant SNP-level findings but also suggestive evidence for a role of individual genes or enrichment for gene ontologies, could be critical in furthering our understanding of the etiology of AP. Rather than focusing on individual SNPs, SNP-level data can be used to conduct gene-based tests [26], which combine evidence across multiple SNPs; test for enrichment of gene ontologies; and investigate whether genes expressed in different tissue types are of particular relevance to AP. These approaches can be complemented by analyses of the aggregate effects of risk variants.
