A limitation of our approach is that it relies on consortia to produce candidate SNPs for developmental analysis. This ignores the possibility of developmentally-relevant SNPs that result in similar adult status. To use a concrete example, there may exist powerful genetic variants that affect the onset of the pubertal growth spurt, and thus affect the shape of an individual’s growth trajectory, but have little or no influence on their eventual adult height. This SNP would never be identified by meta-analyses of adult height, but is extremely important in understanding how growth culminates in adult height. Just as in the GWAS literature, consortia of longitudinal studies are required, and individual investigators must share their data in order to achieve large enough sample sizes for more meaningful comparisons.
