The convergence and phenotypic buffering we observed might also help uncover some of the missing heritability in complex disease. As there are probably many SNPs with low marginal phenotypic effects [50], GWAS currently lack power to detect these. However, the effect of these trait-associated SNPs on expression seems to be less multifactorial, leading to larger expression effects. These numerous expression disturbances will eventually converge to a phenotype, explaining the small phenotypic effect of individual trait-associated SNPs.
