Pitfall of genome-wide association studies: Sources of inconsistency in genotypes and their effects

Personalized medicine will improve heath outcomes and patient satisfaction. However, implementing per-sonalized medicine based on individuals ’ biological information is far from simple, requiring genetic bio-markers that are mainly developed and used by the pharmaceutical companies for selecting those patients who benefit more, or have less risk of adverse drug reactions, from a particular drug. Genome-wide Asso-ciation Studies (GWAS) aim to identify genetic vari-ants across the human genome that might be utilized as genetic biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis. During the last several years, high-density genotyping SNP arrays have facilitated GWAS that successfully identified common genetic variants associated with