About the Authors

Wenbo Tang

These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliation Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America

Matthew Kowgier

These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliation Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and Biostatistics Division, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Daan W. Loth

These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliations Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Netherlands Healthcare Inspectorate, The Hague, the Netherlands

María Soler Artigas

These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliations University of Leicester, Genetic Epidemiology Group, Department of Health Sciences, Leicester, United Kingdom, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, United Kingdom

Bonnie R. Joubert

These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliation Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States of America

Emily Hodge

These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliation Division of Respiratory Medicine, University Hospital of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Sina A. Gharib

These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliation Computational Medicine Core, Center for Lung Biology, Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Albert V. Smith

Affiliations Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

Ingo Ruczinski

Affiliation Department of Biostatistics, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Vilmundur Gudnason

Affiliations Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

Rasika A. Mathias

Affiliation Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Tamara B. Harris

Affiliation Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Nadia N. Hansel

Affiliation Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Lenore J. Launer

Affiliation Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Kathleen C. Barnes

Affiliation Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Joyanna G. Hansen

Affiliation Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America

Eva Albrecht

Affiliation Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany

Melinda C. Aldrich

Affiliation Department of Thoracic Surgery and Division of Epidemiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America

Michael Allerhand

Affiliation Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

R. Graham Barr

Affiliations Division of General Medicine, Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care, Department of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Guy G. Brusselle

Affiliations Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 22 Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

David J. Couper
Ivan Curjuric

Affiliations Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Gail Davies

Affiliations Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Medical Genetics Section, University of Edinburgh Molecular Medicine Centre and MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Ian J. Deary

Affiliations Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Josée Dupuis

Affiliations Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Tove Fall

Affiliation Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Millennia Foy

Affiliation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Nora Franceschini

Affiliation Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Wei Gao

Affiliation Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Sven Gläser

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine B; Pneumology, Cardiology, Intensive Care Medicine; Field of Research: Pneumology and Pneumological Epidemiology, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

Xiangjun Gu

Affiliation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Dana B. Hancock

Affiliations Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States of America, Behavioral Health Epidemiology Program, Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States of America

Joachim Heinrich

Affiliation Institute of Epidemiology I, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany and Comprehensive Pneumology Center Munich (CPC-M), Member of the German Center for Lung Research, Munich, Germany

Albert Hofman

Affiliations Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Medea Imboden

Affiliations Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Erik Ingelsson

Affiliations Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK and Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Alan James

Affiliation School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Stefan Karrasch

Affiliations Institute and Outpatient Clinic for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, Institute of General Practice, University Hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany, Institute of Epidemiology I, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany

Beate Koch

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine B; Pneumology, Cardiology, Intensive Care Medicine; Field of Research: Pneumology and Pneumological Epidemiology, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

Stephen B. Kritchevsky

Affiliation Sticht Center on Aging, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States of America

Ashish Kumar

Affiliations Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK and Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Lies Lahousse

Affiliations Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium

Guo Li

Affiliation Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Lars Lind

Affiliation Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Cecilia Lindgren

Affiliations Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK and Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Yongmei Liu

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States of America

Kurt Lohman

Affiliation Department of Biostatistical Sciences, Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States of America

Thomas Lumley

Affiliation Department of Statistics, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Wendy L. McArdle

Affiliation School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

Bernd Meibohm

Affiliation College of Pharmacy, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America

Andrew P. Morris

Affiliation Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK and Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Alanna C. Morrison

Affiliation Human Genetics Center, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Bill Musk

Affiliation School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Kari E. North

Affiliation Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Lyle J. Palmer

Affiliations Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and Biostatistics Division, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Epidemiology and Obstetrics & Gynaecology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Nicole M. Probst-Hensch

Affiliations Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Bruce M. Psaty

Affiliations Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Fernando Rivadeneira

Affiliations Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Jerome I. Rotter

Affiliation Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, United States of America

Holger Schulz

Affiliation Institute of Epidemiology I, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany and Comprehensive Pneumology Center Munich (CPC-M), Member of the German Center for Lung Research, Munich, Germany

Lewis J. Smith

Affiliation Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Akshay Sood

Affiliation University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America

John M. Starr

Affiliations Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

David P. Strachan

Affiliation Division of Population Health Sciences and Education, St George's, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Alexander Teumer

Affiliation Department for Genetics and Functional Genomics, Interfaculty Institute for Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

André G. Uitterlinden

Affiliations Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Henry Völzke

Affiliation Institute for Community Medicine, Study of Health In Pomerania (SHIP)/Clinical Epidemiological Research, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

Arend Voorman

Affiliation Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Louise V. Wain

Affiliations University of Leicester, Genetic Epidemiology Group, Department of Health Sciences, Leicester, United Kingdom, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, United Kingdom

Martin T. Wells

Affiliation Department of Statistical Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America

Jemma B. Wilk

Affiliations The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America, Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

O. Dale Williams

Affiliation Florida International University, Miami, Florida, United States of America

Susan R. Heckbert

Affiliations Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Bruno H. Stricker

Affiliations Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Netherlands Healthcare Inspectorate, The Hague, the Netherlands

Stephanie J. London

Affiliation Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States of America

Myriam Fornage

‡ These authors are joint last authors on this work.

Affiliations Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Human Genetics Center, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Martin D. Tobin

‡ These authors are joint last authors on this work.

Affiliations University of Leicester, Genetic Epidemiology Group, Department of Health Sciences, Leicester, United Kingdom, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, United Kingdom

George T. O′Connor

‡ These authors are joint last authors on this work.

Affiliations The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America, Section of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Ian P. Hall

‡ These authors are joint last authors on this work.

Affiliation Division of Respiratory Medicine, University Hospital of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Patricia A. Cassano

pac6@cornell.edu

‡ These authors are joint last authors on this work.

Affiliations Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America, Department of Health Care Policy and Research, Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, United States of America

Competing Interests

All authors have read the journal's policy, and 57 of the 81 authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The following 24 authors have possible conflicts, as follows: Dr. Aldrich reports grants from NIH, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Barnes reports grants from NIH, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Barr reports grants from NIH and US—EPA, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Couper reports grants from NIH, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Deary reports grants from Age UK, grants from BBSRC, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Dupuis reports grants from Boston University, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Fall reports personal fees from MSD (Merck), outside the submitted work; Dr. Gudnason reports other from NIH, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Gläser reports grants from BMBF (German Ministry for Research and Education), during the conduct of the study; personal fees from Actelion Pharma, personal fees from Novartis Pharma, personal fees from GSK, personal fees from Pfizer, personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, personal fees from Bayer Pharma, all those apply outside of the submitted work; Dr. Hall reports grants received from MRC and Pfizer, and Vertex sponsored lecture at ERS, outside the submitted work; Dr. Hodge reports grants from The Medical Research Council, UK, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Koch reports grants from BMBF, during the conduct of the study, travel fees from Actelion Pharma, Pfizer, Bayer Pharma, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the Research Network for Community Medicine of the University of Greifswald, one research prize of the Society of Internal Medicine Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, outside the submitted work; Dr. Lahousse reports grant from Belgian Society of Pneumology, during the conduct of the study; Dr. London is funded in full by the Division of Intramural Research, NIEHS, NIH, DHHS; Dr. Lumley reports grants from NIH, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Mathias reports grants from NIH, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Meibohm reports grants from NIH, during the conduct of the study; Dr. O'Connor reports personal fees from Sunovion, Inc., outside the submitted work; Dr. Psaty reports grants from NIH, during the conduct of the study, and Dr. Psaty serves on the DSMB for a clinical trial of a device, which is funded by the manufacturer (Zoll LifeCor), and he is on the Steering Committee of the Yale Open Data Access Project funded by Johnson & Johnson; Dr. L Smith reports personal fees as member of Merck Data Safety and Monitoring Board, outside the submitted work; Dr. Tobin reports grants from Medical Research Council grant G0902313, grants from National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Leicester Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, during the conduct of the study (the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health), grants from Pfizer for collaborative research project (on rare sequence variants and the smoking resistant lung, Nov. 2010 to Nov 2012), outside the submitted work; Dr. Wain reports grants from Pfizer collaborative research project (onrare sequence variants and the smoking resistant lung, Nov. 2010 to Nov 2012), outside the submitted work; Dr. Wilk reports grants from FAMRI, grants from NIH, during the conduct of the study; personal fees from Pfizer, outside the submitted work. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Wrote the paper: All authors. Drafted the manuscript: WT PAC. AGES Study concept, design: TBH VG LJL. ARIC Study concept, design: DJC NF DBH BRJ SJL ACM KEN. B58C Study concept and design: DPS. BHS Study concept, design: AJ B. Musk. CARDIA Study concept, design: M. Fornage AS. CHS Study concept, design: SRH SAG BMP. FHS Study concept, design: JD GTO JBW. Health ABC Study concept, design: PAC SBK WT. KORA Study concept, design: JH HS. LBC Study concept, design: IJD JMS. LHS Study concept, design: KCB NNH RAM. RS Study concept, design: GGB AH FR BHS AGU. SAPALDIA Study concept, design: MI NMP-H. SHIP Study concept, design: BK SG HV. SpiroMeta Study concept, design: IPH MDT. AGES Genotype data/QC: AVS. ARIC Phenotype data/QC: DJC. Genotype data/QC: ACM KEN. B58C Phenotype data/QC: DPS. Genotype data/QC: WLM. BHS Phenotype data/QC: AJ B. Musk. Genotype data/QC: AJ B. Musk LJP. CARDIA Phenotype data/QC: LJS AS ODW. Genotype data/QC: M. Fornage M. Foy XG. CHS Phenotype data/QC: BMP. Genotype data/QC: TL BMP JIR. FHS Phenotype data/QC: GTO. Genotype data/QC: GTO. Health ABC Phenotype data/QC: PAC SBK B. Mwibohm WT. Genotype data/QC: SBK YL KL. KORA Phenotype data/QC: JK SK HS. LBC Phenotype data/QC: IJD JMS. Genotype data/QC: GD. LHS Genotype data/QC: KCB RAM IR. RS Phenotype data/QC: GGB L. Lahousse DWL BHS. Genotype data/QC:FR AGU. SAPALDIA Phenotype data/QC: IC MI NMP-H. Genotype data/QC: IC AK MI NMP-H. SHIP Phenotype data/QC: BK SG HV. Genotype data/QC: BK SG AT HV. SpiroMeta Genotype data/QC: IPH MDT. PIVUS Phenotype data/QC: EI L. Lind. Genotype data/QC: EI L. Lind APM. AGES Data analysis: AVS. ARIC Data analysis: BRJ SJL. B58C Data analysis: DPS LVW. BHS Data analysis: MK LP. CARDIA Data analysis: M. Fornage M. Foy XG. CHS Data analysis: SAG SRH GL TL AV. FHS Data analysis: JD WG JBW. Health ABC Data analysis: PAC YL KL WT MTW. KORA Data analysis: EA. LBC Data analysis: MA GD. LHS Data analysis: KCB NNH RAM IR. RS Data analysis: L. Lahousse DWL. SAPALDIA Data analysis: MI. SHIP Data analysis: AT. SpiroMeta Data analysis: MSA IPH MDT. PIVUS Data analysis: TF.