Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and has a huge clinical and economic impact. The disease has a complex aetiology but genetic factors play an important role in pathogenesis. Identification of the loci that predispose to OA susceptibility will lead to a much better understanding of the cause of the disease as well as identifying new molecular targets for therapeutic intervention. Alleles that predispose to OA could also be used, in individual cases, to determine prognosis and the response to surgical or drug treatments.

We have undertaken a genome-wide association study for OA susceptibility alleles in a large collaborative study of 8000 OA cases involving 5 UK centres using Illumina's 610K array. Analysis of the first 4000 cases was performed using publically available common control sets from circa 5000 UK individuals from the 1958 British Birth Cohort (58BC), the UK Blood Service collection of the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium and the TwinsUK. In the second stage of the study we need additional UK controls preferably analysed using the same platform. We have obtained permission to use non overlapping sets of 58BC (2500 samples) typed by the T1D Geneetic Consortium and TwinsUK (2000 samples). To further increase the control sample we seak permission to include the genotypic data of the 3000 ALSPAC samples profiled with the 317K and 660K arrays at the Sanger Institute. The genotypic data are available at the Sanger Institute and therefore there is no need to resend. Analyses may require to correct for height and weight and therefore we are requesting this data for the oldest available age. Genotypic data will be used as common controls in the main discovery GWA analysis as well as part of further meta-analyses of other OA scans.

We would like to request

Sex Child

Body weight Child Clinic latest age

Height Child '' latest age

Genotypes (317K or 660K array) Child ''