Genetic analyses in a sample of individuals with high or low BMD shows association with multiple Wnt pathway genes

Abstract

Using a moderate-sized cohort selected with extreme BMD (n = 344; absolute value BMD, 1.5-4.0), significant association of several members of the Wnt signaling pathway with bone densitometry measures was shown. This confirms that extreme truncate selection is a powerful design for quantitative trait association studies of bone phenotypes. Introduction: Although the high heritability of BMD variation has long been established, few genes have been conclusively shown to affect the variation of BMD in the general population. Extreme truncate selection has been proposed as a more powerful alternative to unselected cohort designs in quantitative trait association studies. We sought to test these t..