rs12412988 (ADAM12): Adult Height GWAS Variant

Key takeaways

• rs12412988 is one of 12,111 common variants tied to adult height in a study of 5.4 million people
• These height variants collectively explain about 40% of height variation in people of European ancestry
• Prediction accuracy drops to roughly 10-20% in non-European populations due to genetic architecture differences, not different biology
• The height variant map is considered essentially complete for European ancestry populations, but gaps remain for other groups
• No drug response or lifestyle data are currently linked to this specific variant

What the research says A genome-wide association study (GWAS - a method that scans the entire genome to find variants statistically correlated with a trait) of 5.4 million individuals identified 12,111 independent SNPs significantly associated with adult height, a set that includes rs12412988 near the ADAM12 locus PMID 36224396. These associated variants cluster within 7,209 non-overlapping genomic segments averaging roughly 90 kilobases in length and together cover about 21% of the genome PMID 36224396. Collectively the 12,111 SNPs account for around 40% of phenotypic variance in height within European ancestry samples, or approximately 45% when all HapMap 3 panel variants are included, but this figure falls to roughly 10-20% in non-European ancestry samples, a difference the authors attribute to disparities in linkage disequilibrium (the tendency for nearby variants to be inherited together) and allele frequency rather than to distinct underlying biology PMID 36224396.

Reported associations

• Adult height: rs12412988 is among 12,111 independent variants significantly associated with adult height, identified across a discovery sample of approximately 4.1 million participants of predominantly European ancestry, 473,000 of East Asian ancestry, 455,000 of Hispanic ancestry, 294,000 of African ancestry, and 78,000 of South Asian ancestry PMID 36224396

Evidence quality The height association for rs12412988 derives from one of the largest GWASs performed for any human trait, encompassing 5.4 million individuals across 281 contributing studies PMID 36224396. The study authors characterize the resulting variant map as "saturated" for common variation in European ancestry populations, meaning the catalogue of common height-associated variants is effectively complete for this group, while noting that equivalent coverage has not yet been achieved for other ancestry groups PMID 36224396. No specific per-SNP p-value or individual effect size for rs12412988 is reported in the available study text; the 40% variance-explained figure reflects the full set of 12,111 SNPs acting together, not this variant alone. The study's own findings also underscore a key limitation: the identified variants explain substantially less height variance in non-European populations, indicating that genetic architecture studies in diverse ancestries remain incomplete PMID 36224396.

Lifestyle considerations No lifestyle considerations on file for this variant.