What is trait discoverability?

Question

[_quantum_girl_]

I came across this sentence in a paper (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.18.24313729v1.full.pdf):

"Additionally, we extracted the traits' discoverability (effect size variance) and SNP-based heritability (the degree of variation in a phenotypic trait explained by SNPs)"

What is traits' discoverability? effect size variance of what? How would you write the equation for this? Never seen this term before.

[GenoMax]

With appropriate caution this type of a question can be a good one to ask GTP. Here is an explanation courtesy of GPT:

This sentence discusses two important concepts related to genetic traits and their analysis:

1. Traits' Discoverability (Effect Size Variance):

   • Discoverability refers to how easily a genetic trait can be identified or detected in studies, which often depends on the effect size variance. Effect size variance indicates how much the genetic variants (like SNPs) vary in their impact on the trait. If a trait has high effect size variance, it means that some genetic variants have a large impact, making the trait easier to discover through genetic analysis.

2. SNP-based Heritability:

   • SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism)-based heritability is a measure of how much of the variation in a particular phenotypic trait (like height, intelligence, or disease risk) is explained by differences in SNPs. It tells us what proportion of the trait's variation is due to genetic differences at the level of SNPs, compared to environmental or other non-genetic factors.

In summary, this sentence means that the researchers are examining how easy it is to detect certain traits based on genetic information (discoverability) and how much of the variation in those traits can be attributed to specific genetic differences (SNP-based heritability).