somewhat conservative. In addition, the 10k SNPs with the lowest meta-analysis p-values can explain about 60% of the SNP heritability [1]. If the SNPs tagging the remaining 40% each have similar predictive power as the SNPs tagging the first 60%, then the number of SNPs needed to capture the full hSNP2 would lie around 10k/0.6 = 17k, which is somewhat lower than the 20k which yields the most accurate theoretical predictions. However, as indicated before, the SNPs which appear most prominent in a GWAS are likely to be the ones with a greater than average predictive power. Therefore, the remaining 40% of hSNP2 is likely to be stemming for SNPs with somewhat lower predictive power. Hence, 20k associated independent SNPs is not an unreasonable number for height.
