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Yoon Shin Cho, Mark Seielstad and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for type 2 diabetes in individuals of east Asian ancestry. They identify eight new loci associated with type 2 diabetes.

Andrew Morris, Mark McCarthy, Michael Boehnke and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for type 2 diabetes, including 26,488 cases and 83,964 controls from populations of European, east Asian, south Asian and Mexican and Mexican American ancestry. They identify seven loci newly associated with type 2 diabetes and examine the genetic architecture of disease across populations.

Mark Seielstad and colleagues report results of a large genome-wide association and replication study of ulcerative colitis. The work identifies several new risk loci for this disease and provides further insight into the shared pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.

Psoriasis is a common inflammatory skin disease with complex genetics and different degrees of prevalence across ethnic populations. Here Yin et al. conduct a large trans-ethnic genome-wide meta-analysis and identify novel loci that contribute to population-specific susceptibility.

Lipid concentration in the serum is one of the most important risk factors for coronary artery disease and can be targeted for therapeutic intervention. A genome-wide association study in >100,000 individuals of European ancestry now finds 95 significantly associated loci that also affect lipid traits in non-European populations. Among associated loci are those involved in cholesterol metabolism, known targets of cholesterol-lowering drugs and those that contribute to normal variation in lipid traits and to extreme lipid phenotypes.

Sequencing data from two large-scale studies show that most of the genetic variation influencing the risk of type 2 diabetes involves common alleles and is found in regions previously identified by genome-wide association studies, clarifying the genetic architecture of this disease.

Exome-sequencing analyses of a large cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes and control individuals without diabetes from five ancestries are used to identify gene-level associations of rare variants that are associated with type 2 diabetes.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease. Here, Pattaro et al. conduct a meta-analysis to discover several new loci associated with variation in eGFR and find that genes associated with eGFR loci often encode proteins potentially related to kidney development.

John Chambers and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for type 2 diabetes in individuals of south Asian ancestry. They identify six loci newly associated with type 2 diabetes.

Norihiro Kato and colleagues perform a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies to identify common variants associated with blood pressure variation in east Asians. They identify five new genome-wide significant signals and replicate seven loci previously discovered in populations of European ancestry.

John Rioux and colleagues report results of a large genome-wide association meta-analysis and follow-up study of ulcerative colitis. They identify 29 new risk loci for this inflammatory disease and show that many risk loci are shared between ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.

John Chambers, Jaspal Kooner, Pim van der Harst, Shyong Tai, Paul Elliott, Jiang He, Norihiro Kato and colleagues performed a genome-wide association study of blood pressure phenotypes in individuals of European, East Asian and South Asian ancestry. They find trait-associated SNPs at 12 loci, some of which are associated with methylation at nearby CpG sites.

Apart from resistance to infectious disease, there are few examples of adaptive molecular evolution in humans. A new study indicates that olfactory receptors are exceptions, with natural selection maintaining considerable allelic diversity in this multigene family.

Most of the more than 200 known genetic risk loci for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) reside in regulatory regions. Here, the authors provide eQTL datasets for six circulating immune cell types and ileal, colonic and rectal biopsies to map regulatory modules and identify potential causative genes for IBD.

Robert Plenge and colleagues report the results of a meta-analysis of published genome-wide association studies that led to the identification of two previously unknown variants associated with rheumatoid arthritis.

Soumya Raychaudhuri and colleagues demonstrate the utility of GRAIL, a software program used to prioritize results from genome-wide association studies for further replication, applied here to rheumatoid arthritis. The authors seek replication of their predictions in additional independent cohorts and report three new genetic loci associated with RA susceptibility.

Chiea Chuen Khor, Tin Aung and colleagues report the results of a large genome-wide association study of primary angle closure glaucoma. They identify five new susceptibility loci and provide insights into disease pathogenesis.

Eli Stahl and colleagues report results of a genome-wide association study meta-analysis and replication study for rheumatoid arthritis. Their work identifies several new risk loci and highlights genetic overlap with other autoimmune diseases.

Yukinori Okada and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for kidney function–related traits in 71,149 individuals from east Asia. They identify 17 loci newly associated with the concentrations of blood urea nitrogen, serum creatinine and uric acid, and with glomerular filtration rate (eGFRcrea), several of which are also associated with chronic kidney disease.

Xiao-Ou Shu and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for body mass index (BMI) in east Asians. They identify three new genetic loci associated with BMI.

John Rioux, Andre Franke, Tom Karlsen and colleagues perform a fine-mapping study of the HLA region in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. They identify a primary role for HLA-DRB1*01:03 in both diseases and find evidence of heterozygous advantage in protection against ulcerative colitis.

A risk haplotype for type 2 diabetes is identified with four amino acid substitutions in SLC16A11, which is present at ∼50% frequency in Native American samples and ∼10% in east Asian samples, but is rare in European and African samples; SLC16A11 may alter hepatic lipid metabolism, causing an increase in triacylglycerol levels.