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Genetic Correlation

Definition
AI-generated

Genetic correlation (often denoted r_g or ρ_g) quantifies how much additive genetic variation is shared between two traits: under a simple model, it reflects the correlation of SNP effects (or breeding values) across traits.

Topics
Post-GWAS
Related
Cross-Ancestry Genetic Correlation Heritability LD Score Regression

Why it matters in GWAS

r_g summarizes pleiotropy at the genome-wide level, motivates multi-trait analyses, and contextualizes MR and colocalization; it is commonly estimated from GWAS summary statistics (e.g. bivariate LD score regression) or family/twin data.

Example usage

"At this locus, Genetic Correlation annotations were used to prioritize plausible biological mechanisms."

Cross-Ancestry Genetic Correlation Heritability LD Score Regression Multi-Trait GWAS Pleiotropy SNP Heritability Trait
Related-term network

Click any node to open that term page.

Node order. The current term is first. Next come every page linked from Related terms, in the same top-to-bottom order as that list. Then new terms appear in two-hop layers: for each of those direct neighbors (in that same order), their related terms are appended if not already listed. A third pass does the same for two-hop nodes. The walk stops when a fixed maximum number of nodes is reached.

References

  • Bulik-Sullivan B, et al. (2015). An atlas of genetic correlations across human diseases and traits. Nat Genet.
  • Jee J, et al. (2026). The pleiotropic landscape of the human genome. Nat Rev Genet. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-025-00908-0
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