[Skip to Navigation]
Sign In
JAMA Insights
Genomics and Precision Health
January 4, 2022

Phenome-Wide Association Studies

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
  • 2Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
  • 3All of Us Research Program, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
  • 4Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
JAMA. 2022;327(1):75-76. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.20356

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have made clear that single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) that occur at multiple locations across the genome can be associated with a specific condition or trait, also known as a phenotype. Phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS) invert the idea of a GWAS by searching for phenotypes associated with specific SNVs across the range of thousands of human phenotypes, or the “phenome” (Figure). Analogous to GWAS, PheWAS have shown that specific genetic variations may be associated with multiple conditions and traits.

Add or change institution
×