Several meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been undertaken to detect genetic determinants of HR (12–16). There were 21 HR loci previously reported at the time of our study by den Hoed et al. (12) in a GWAS analysis of 180 000 individuals, predominantly of European ancestry. The study implicated 20 candidate genes from follow-up functional studies in Danio rerio and Drosophila melanogaster models. Smaller GWAS analyses have also been performed in Icelandic and Norwegian populations (15), African Americans (13) and genetically isolated European populations (16). The variants discovered by GWAS are common, and are mostly in introns or intergenic regions. Together the previous loci from GWAS at the time of our study only explain a small percentage [0.9% of the variability in HR (12,17)].
