A multicohort genome-wide association study in people of African ancestry identified 3 gene variants that may contribute to this population’s susceptibility to developing glaucoma and losing vision. According to Shefali S. Verma, MD, and fellow researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, people of African ancestry are 5 times as likely as others to develop glaucoma and up to 15 times as likely to be blinded by the condition. But the vast majority of research has used data from people of European ancestry, they wrote in Cell.

Involving more than 11,200 people of African ancestry, the new study uncovered 2 variants correlated with primary open-angle glaucoma: rs1666698, tied to the gene DBF4P2, and rs34957764, linked to ROCK1P1. A third variant, rs11824032, which is tied to ARHGEF12, was associated with cup-to-disc ratio.