Human genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have recurrently estimated lower heritability estimates than familial studies. Many explanations have been suggested to explain these lower estimates, including that a substantial proportion of genetic variation and gene-by-environment interactions are unmeasured in typical GWASs. The human microbiome is potentially related to both of these explanations, but it has been more commonly considered as a source of unmeasured genetic variation. In particular, it has recently been argued that the genetic variation within the human microbiome should be included when estimating trait heritability. We outline issues with this argument, which in its strictest form depends on the holobiont model of human-microbiome interactions. Instead, we argue that the microbiome could be leveraged to help control for environmental variation across a population, although that remains to be determined. We discuss potential approaches that could be explored to determine whether integrating microbiome sequencing data into GWASs is useful.

中文翻译：

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重新评估缺失的遗传力和微生物组之间的关系。

与家族研究相比，人类全基因组关联研究（GWAS）的反复估计的遗传力估计值较低。已经提出了许多解释来解释这些较低的估计值，包括在典型的GWAS中无法测量到很大比例的遗传变异和基因与环境之间的相互作用。人类微生物组可能与这两种解释有关，但人们更普遍认为它是无法测量的遗传变异的来源。特别是，最近有人争辩说，在估计性状遗传力时应包括人类微生物组内的遗传变异。我们用这个论点来概述问题，其最严格的形式取决于人-微生物组相互作用的全息模型。代替，我们认为微生物群可以用来帮助控制整个人群的环境变化，尽管这还有待确定。我们讨论了可以探索的潜在方法，以确定将微生物组测序数据整合到GWAS中是否有用。