All meta-analyses were undertaken using fixed effects inverse variance weighting which takes directionality of association into account. Effect estimates for all variants followed up in stage 2 were meta-analysed across the three stage 2 studies and then the combined result was meta-analysed with stage 1 results. Where the discovery variant was not present in any stage 2 study, a proxy (r2>0.8) that was available in all stage 1 and stage 2 studies was used. We report signals with association P<5x10-8 in the meta-analysis of stages 1 and 2 as novel signals of association with lung function.
