Fig 1. Flowchart of the genotyping strategy followed to investigate the significance of the two SNPs in four genes that emerged to have functional significance based on the in silico assay (see material and methods).

Black arrow symbolizes the NEPH3-V353M variant which initially derived indicative significant association and was investigated further (black not filled arrows symbolize the meta-analysis). Light grey arrows symbolize the three SNPs found not to be significantly associated in sub-cohort A and not tested further. Dot-lined arrows symbolize the two SNPs that were found to be non-polymorphic in this cohort and not tested further.