To our knowledge, this is the largest and most comprehensive fine-mapping study conducted to date in AA. Our findings likely rules out that several of the EA index SNPs in intron 1 of FTO such as rs9939609, as well as a large fraction of SNPs correlated in EA but not in AA are the underlying functional variants. With rs56137030 and its correlated SNPs, our finding points us closer to the functional variant(s). Among these, rs1421085 is the most compelling candidate for follow-up functional evaluation. Importantly, our study demonstrated that comprehensive fine-mapping in AA provides a powerful approach to narrow in on the functional candidate(s) underlying the initial GWAS findings in EA.
