We compared our results with those of the study by Fehrmann et al. [21], which performed a genome-wide eQTL analysis on 289,044 SNPs in whole blood expression data of 1,469 unrelated individuals from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The genotyping platform which they used (Illumina HumanHap300 platform) included only 24% of the 534,404 SNPs analyzed in the current study and 15% of the 1,153 eQTL SNPs identified in the current study. Therefore, 85% of the eQTL SNPs identified in the current study had not been identified by Fehrmann et al. [21], because they were not included in the Illumina HumanHap300 platform. On the other hand, 84% of the eQTL SNPs identified in the current study which were included in the Illumina HumanHap300 platform had also been identified as eQTL SNPs in their study. The high replication rate supports the robustness of our findings.
