To assess the reliability of our proposed eQTL signals, we sought replication in three independent published data sets (Supplementary Table 3 and Online Methods). Heinzen et al.14 featured the same expression array but a small sample size (n = 84) from a single brain region (frontal cortex). The North American Brain Expression Consortium (NABEC)16,20 featured a different expression array but a larger sample size (n = 304) for two brain regions (cerebellum and frontal cortex) from each individual. Zeller et al.25 featured a different array and a single non-brain cell type (monocytes) but a very large sample size (n = 1,490), and therefore this data set might replicate ubiquitous eQTL signals found across human tissues.
