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A way to identify the biological basis of gene–trait associations

Genetic-association studies have identified many genetic variants that are associated with complex traits. However, in most cases, the biology underlying the association is unknown. Integrating experimental gene-perturbation and genetic-association data sets could reveal the mechanisms underlying complex traits.

This is a summary of: Ota, M. et al. Causal modelling of gene effects from regulators to programs to traits. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09866-3 (2025).

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-04004-5

‘Expert opinion’ is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence and Figure 1 is published under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

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