Genetics of endocrine disorders in the era of genome-wide association studies

[Extract] All endocrine events and disorders such as the metabolic syndrome, diabetes, osteoporosis, menarche, menopause and the related serum sex steroid levels are heterogeneous, complex traits that have a major impact on human health and quality of life. Linkage analysis and candidate gene association analyses have been the primary methods to identify susceptibility loci for these phenotypic traits. However, during the past decade, the advent of the Human Genome Project and the HapMap project, together with high-throughput genotyping technologies and statistical methods have revolutionized the field of genetic research, enabling large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Using this approach, it has become feasible to systematically search the entire human genome for common variants, so called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are associated with a particular phenotype or disorder. This Special Issue of Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology provides an overview of the newly identified genetic architecture of endocrine disorders using the GWAS approach.