Abundant contribution of short tandem repeats to gene expression variation in humans

Yaniv Erlich and colleagues report a genome-wide survey of the contribution of short tandem repeats (STRs) to gene expression in humans and identify 2,060 significant expression STRs (eSTRs). They find that eSTRs contribute 10–15% of the cis heritability mediated by all common variants and are associated with various clinically relevant phenotypes.