Statistical false positive or true disease pathway?
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Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Determining the Likelihood of Variant Pathogenicity Using Amino Acid-level Signal-to-Noise Analysis of Genetic Variation
Published on: January 16, 2019
1University of Cambridge, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Addenbrooke's Hospital Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB2 2XY, UK. john.todd@cimr.cam.ac.uk
Abstract:
Three very recent reports provide convincing statistical evidence (P < 10(-8)), at a genome-wide level, of the association of common polymorphisms with three different common diseases: systemic lupus erythematosus (IRF5), prostate cancer and type 1 diabetes (IFIH1 region). This adds to the trickle--soon to be a flood--of disease association results that are highly unlikely to be false positives. There are other convincing examples in the last 12 months: age-related macular degeneration (CFH), type 1 diabetes (IL2RA, also known as CD25) and type 2 diabetes (TCF7L2). Given 20 years of a literature full of irreproducible results, what has changed?
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