Using a Bonferroni-corrected significance level of 4.95 × 10− 5, two variants were identified that were significantly more common in our microtia-atresia patients: rs12288387 in DCHS1 (dachsous cadherin-related 1) and rs144123706 in GBA (glucosylceramidase beta) (Fig. 1, Table 2, Additional file 4). Here, GBA1 is linked to microtia.