Skip to main content
Fig. 2 | Human Genomics

Fig. 2

From: The impact of genome-wide association studies on biomedical research publications

Fig. 2

Effect on subsequent publications for genes newly associated with complex disease via GWAS. To quantify the short-term effects of GWAS association, we considered the publication excess of each newly associated gene compared with its control gene. a The variance of the publication excess is strongly correlated with the associated gene’s number of recent publications. b Normalizing the publication excess by the square root of the number of recent publications equalizes the variance. It also reveals a trend for the normalized effect of GWAS association to be smaller for more heavily studied genes. c The distribution of normalized publication excess is shifted toward positive values, indicating a positive effect of GWAS association on subsequent publications. d The normalized publication excess for a newly associated gene is weakly correlated with the p value of the association. e It is not statistically significantly correlated with the estimated effect size of the association, as quantified by the reported odds ratio. f The normalized publication excess is negatively correlated with the publication date of the association. More recently associated genes experience a smaller increase in subsequent publications. Reported correlations ρ are Spearman rank correlations, and thick black lines in panels df are linear regressions

Back to article page