METASTROKE is the first large meta-analysis of stroke GWAS data (panel). The METASTROKE collaboration brings together GWAS data from more than 12 000 cases of ischaemic stroke and 60 000 controls from 15 cohorts all of European ancestry. In this first analysis from the dataset, we confirmed four of five previously described associations with ischaemic stroke in populations of European ancestry, including replication in an independent non-overlapping sample of the dataset not included in the original GWAS. All these associations were with specific subtypes of ischaemic stroke, emphasising the genetic heterogeneity of the disease. Additionally, we identified several promising novel associations, some of which were close to genome-wide significance in the discovery cohorts, but these were not confirmed in our replication population.PanelResearch in context Systematic review As part of the International Stroke Genetics Consortium we had access to several genome-wide association datasets for ischaemic stroke, including both published and unpublished studies. To identify other studies, we searched PubMed on July 30, 2012, for published genome-wide association studies in ischaemic stroke with the terms “ischaemic stroke” and “genome wide association”. The
