Identification of a common variant affecting human episodic memory performance using a pooled genome-wide association approach: a case study of disease gene identification.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are an important tool for discovering novel genes associated with disease or traits. Careful design of case-control groups greatly facilitates the efficacy of these studies. Here we describe a pooled GWAS study undertaken to find novel genes associated with human episodic memory performance. A genomic locus for the WW and C2 domain-containing 1 protein, KIBRA (also known as WWC1), was found to be associated with memory performance in three cognitively normal cohorts from Switzerland and the USA. This result was further supported by correlation of KIBRA genotype and differences in hippocampal activation as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). These findings provide an excellent example of the application of GWAS using a pooled genomic DNA approach to successfully identify a locus with strong effects on human memory.