We describe a reference panel of 64,976 human haplotypes at 39,235,157 SNPs constructed using whole genome sequence data from 20 studies of predominantly European ancestry. Using this resource leads to accurate genotype imputation at minor allele frequencies as low as 0.1%, a large increase in the number of SNPs tested in association studies and can help to discover and refine causal loci. We describe remote server resources that allow researchers to carry out imputation and phasing consistently and efficiently.

Genetic association studies have identified 215 risk loci for inflammatory bowel disease 1–8, which have revealed fundamental aspects of its molecular biology. We performed a genome-wide association study of 25,305 individuals, and meta-analyzed with published summary statistics, yielding a total sample size of 59,957 subjects. We identified 25 new loci, three of which contain integrin genes that encode proteins in pathways identified as important therapeutic targets in inflammatory bowel disease. The associated variants are correlated with expression changes in response to immune stimulus at two of these genes (ITGA4, ITGB8) and at previously implicated loci (ITGAL, ICAM1). In all four cases, the expression increasing allele also increases disease risk. We also identified likely causal missense variants in the primary immune deficiency gene PLCG2 and a negative regulator of inflammation, SLAMF8. Our results demonstrate that new common variant associations continue to identify genes relevant to therapeutic target identification and prioritization.