In Silico Post Genome-Wide Association Studies Analysis of C-Reactive Protein Loci Suggests an Important Role for Interferons.

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have successfully identified several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP). An important limitation of GWASs is that the identified variants merely flag the nearby genomic region and do not necessarily provide a direct link to the biological mechanisms underlying their corresponding phenotype. Here we apply a bioinformatics-based approach to uncover the functional characteristics of the 18 SNPs that had previously been associated with CRP at a genome-wide significant level.