The small-effect eQTL SNPs are likely to have remained undetected in the present study due to the strict correction procedures for multiple testing. In order to reduce the number of unreported cis-eQTL SNPs, we also performed cis-only analysis by examining only SNPs 1 Mb upstream or downstream of the targeted gene. A total of 955,370 SNP-probe pairs were examined, and those with an average Pearson’s correlation () of the 3 sample groups corresponding to P<5.23×10−9 (i.e., Bonferroni-corrected P<0.05) were considered significant. As shown in Table S4, the cis-only analysis resulted in 3,883 SNP-probe pairs consisting of 3,161 SNPs and 347 probes.
