We identified 28 significant associations between mQTLs and AMD at 7 GWAS loci (SMR P value < 5.68 × 10−7 after Bonferroni correction) (Supplementary Data 18); of which, 5 associations at 3 loci (KMT2E/SRPK2, PILRB/PILRA and ARMS2/HTRA1) passed the linkage test (HEIDI P value > 0.05) and are thus likely to be pleiotropic (Fig. 4b). Here, ARMS2 is linked to age-related macular degeneration.