This is one of the first studies of the Metabochip in an ancestral group that is particularly well suited for fine-mapping GWAS loci, due to its distinct linkage disequilibrium (LD) patterns and lower LD overall. Our example clearly shows the powerful approach of studying a large AA population, substantially reducing the number of possible functional variants compared with European descent populations. While very large number of Europeans and EAs are genotyped on the Metabochip, the number of Minority populations genotyped on this chip is substantially smaller; however, this is the focus of the PAGE Study. As many papers using the Metabochip in European populations will be published over the next years, our results show the important contribution that Minority populations and, in particularly AA, will have for systematic mapping of GWAS loci.
