ABSTRACT
Association studies are becoming an increasingly popular strategy for unlocking the genetic machinery controlling complex traits. Traditionally, association studies were used to fine-map genes once linkage analysis techniques had identified chromosomal regions of interest. However, with the advent of high-throughput marker platforms and the resulting dense marker maps, whole-genome association studies are being routinely performed in humans and many animal species. In the last decade, association studies have gone from being purely a refinement tool to being a new and powerful gene discovery platform.
