Third, whereas the association signals detected can help to define regions of interest, they cannot provide unambiguous identification of the causal genes. Nevertheless, assessments on the basis of positional candidacy carry considerable weight, and, as we show, these already allow us, for selected diseases, to highlight pathways and mechanisms of particular interest. Naturally, extensive resequencing and fine-mapping work, followed by functional studies will be required before such inferences can be translated into robust statements about the molecular and physiological mechanisms involved.
