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While the Arabian population has a high prevalence of metabolic disorders, it has not been included in global studies that identify genetic risk loci for metabolic traits. Determining the transferability of such largely Euro-centric established risk loci is essential to transfer the research tools/resources, and drug targets generated by global studies to a broad range of ethnic populations. Further, consideration of populations such as Arabs, that are characterized by consanguinity and a high level of inbreeding, can lead to identification of novel risk loci. We imputed published GWAS data from two Kuwaiti Arab cohorts (n = 1434 and 1298) to the 1000 Genomes Project haplotypes and performed meta-analysis for associations with 13 metabolic traits. We compared the observed association signals with those established for metabolic traits. Our study highlighted 70 variants from 9 different genes, some of which have established links to metabolic disorders. By relaxing the genome-wide significance threshold, we identified ‘novel’ risk variants from 11 genes for metabolic traits. Many novel risk variant association signals were observed at or borderline to genome-wide significance. Furthermore, 349 previously established variants from 187 genes were validated in our study. Pleiotropic effect of risk variants on multiple metabolic traits were observed. Fine-mapping illuminated rs7838666/CSMD1 rs1864163/CETP and rs112861901/[INTS10,LPL] as candidate causal variants influencing fasting plasma glucose and high-density lipoprotein levels. Computational functional analysis identified a variety of gene regulatory signals around several variants. This study enlarges the population ancestry diversity of available GWAS and elucidates new variants in an ethnic group burdened with metabolic disorders.

Unpredictable cropping frequently goes hand in hand with a resurgence in cherry farming. Even though external influences are frequently investigated to justify fruit set failures, studies suggest that the fundamental reasons of a superior or inferior crop seem to originate from within the flower. Despite many blossoms produce fruit, yet many fail to mature and drop. These failures occur in three locations: the stigma, that serves as a platform for interaction; the style, where intensive competition and selection occur; and the ovary, where the most exclusive aspect of the pollen-pistil relationship takes place. Following the phases from pollination through fertilisation, the process of reproduction in cherries is initially examined in this paper in a constructive manner. Then, these phases are reexamined in the negative, focussing on the changes that occur during this process that led to fruit set failures. The remaining pollen tubes in flower after the sperm cells have left, marking the locations of reproductive failures and turning the blossom into a challenge that can be solved by identifying the root cause of the issue. An important aspect of sweet cherry floral biology is pollen incompatibility, which is often caused by the suppression of pollen tube development either on the stigma or within the style. This failure in fruit set is typically attributed to several environmental causes like temperature fluctuations, humidity, or inadequate pollinators. However, since many environmental factors have changed from flowering to fruiting, it is usually difficult to identify the true causes of uneven yields. Surprisingly, though the primary reason of the inconsistent cropping was an unidentified factor that seemed to be related to the flower part, however, it is hypothesized to be related to floral biology, such as pollen-pistil interactions, pollen tube expansion and ovule development.