Before revision: Natural genetic variation between individuals in a population leads to variations in gene expression that are informative for the inference of gene regulatory networks. Particularly, genome-wide genotype and transcriptome data from the same samples allow for causal inference between gene expression traits using the DNA variations in cis-regulatory regions as causal anchors .
After revision: Mapping gene expression as a quantitative trait using whole genome-sequencing and transcriptome analysis allows to discover the functional consequences of genetic variation. We developed a novel method and ultra-fast software Findr for higly accurate causal inference between gene expression traits using the DNA variations in cis-regulatory regions as causal anchors .