Fig. 1

Proportional representation of Arabs in genomic studies of common disease. a Proportional representation of published GWAS study participants between 2006 and 2022 for individuals of 6 ancestral groups. The y-axis represents the cumulative percentage of the total. b Zoomed-in plot of a which excludes European-ancestry participants highlighting increase in representation of East Asian, South Asian, African, and Hispanic/Latino-ancestry group participants over time, but a persistent representation near zero for Arabs. c Zoomed-in plot of b which shows only Arab participants highlighting the recent increase in representation due to the publication of data from the Qatar Biobank (QBB). d Participants in published GWAS studies by the Arab country of origin between 2010 and 2022. By 2022, 96.2% of the Arab participants are from Qatar and the remaining 3.8% are from 10 other countries. e Zoomed-in plot of d which excludes the data of 2022 to highlight the breakdown of participants by the remaining countries. f For each of 9 cardiometabolic traits, we compare the minor allele frequency (MAF) of causal variants associated with the trait among individuals of European ancestry in the UK Biobank (N = 361,194) to their frequency in an indigenous Arab cohort from Saudi Arabia (N = 1017). Causal variants were obtained from fine mapping results performed using FINEMAP v1.3.1 and SuSiE v0.8.1.0521, available from the Funcane Lab (www.finucanelab.org/data). Across all 9 traits, the MAF of causal variants was significantly lower in Indigenous Arabs compared to European-ancestry individuals. CAD coronary artery disease, LDL low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, HDL high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, BMI body mass index, Ht height, T2D type 2 diabetes mellitus, SBP systolic blood pressure, DBP diastolic blood pressure, TG triglyceride. Mann–Whitney U test was used for comparison. “****” denotes p < 1.00e − 04, “***” denotes 1.00e − 04 < p ≤ 1.00e − 03, and “**” denotes 1.00e − 03 < p ≤ 1.00e − 02