Genome-wide SNP genotyping for the MARS discovery sample was performed on Sentrix Human-1 (100k) and HumanHap300 (317k) Genotyping BeadChips (Illumina Inc., San Diego, USA) according to the manufacturer’s standard protocols. On the Illumina Human-1 Genotyping BeadChip about 109,000 exon-centric SNPs can be interrogated. Nearly 25,000 of the loci are located in transcripts and more than 73,000 loci are within 10kb of coding sequences. The Illumina HumanHap300 Genotyping BeadChip comprises about 317,000 SNPs. The average call rate achieved was higher than 99%, with samples below 98% being either retyped or excluded from the study. Genotyping of the German replication samples (except MARS replication) and the African American replication sample was performed on a MALDI-TOF mass-spectrometer (MassArray® system, Sequenom Inc., San Diego, USA) employing the manufacturer’s AssayDesigner software for primer selection, multiplexing and assay design, and the homogeneous mass-extension (hMe) process for producing primer extension products. MALDI-TOF SNP genotyping was performed at the Genome Analysis Center (GAC) facility of the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich, Germany. All primer sequences used are available upon request. The individual-wise mean call rate over all plates and these
