Rheumatoid arthritis: GWAS or TMI?

Genome-wide association studies are the most comprehensive and straightforward approach to teasing out the identity of genetic polymorphisms associated with any given disease or characteristic. With the availability of DNA banks from large cohorts of ethnically matched patients and healthy individuals it is now possible to define even marginal genetic associations between genetic polymorphisms and diseases. As increasing numbers of these studies are carried out and as associations with smaller and smaller risks are identified, there is the growing concern that the findings will be of increasingly marginal value. Thus, the glut of new genetic associations is rapidly overwhelming our interest in the results, a situation that could be described as TMI (too much information). Recent genetic association studies in rheumatoid arthritis suggest that we may be approaching the TMI stage of genome-wide association studies.