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The extent to which RPE pigmentation is related to that of other tissues remains unclear. We utilised RPE thickness measured using optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging as an indicator of RPE melanin content. UK Biobank data was used to assess the relationships between RPE thickness and fundus pigmentation, hair colour, skin colour and ability to tan. We performed a genome\u2010wide association study (GWAS) to identify genetic loci associated with RPE thickness. We explored the genetic correlation between RPE thickness and pigmentation\u2010related traits. We found that RPE thickness was not phenotypically or globally genetically correlated with hair colour, skin colour or ability to tan. Whilst RPE thickness was phenotypically correlated with fundus pigmentation, there was not significant global genetic correlation. Despite this, variants in key pigmentation loci including <jats:italic>TYR<\/jats:italic> and <jats:italic>OCA2<\/jats:italic>\u2010<jats:italic>HERC2<\/jats:italic> were significant in our GWAS of RPE thickness. We identified four genetic regions in which RPE thickness is locally genetically correlated with other pigmentation\u2010related traits, all of which contain protein\u2010coding genes that are central to melanogenesis and melanosome transport. Our study highlights shared and divergent features between RPE thickness and other pigmented traits.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1111\/pcmr.70038","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,12]],"date-time":"2025-07-12T07:34:57Z","timestamp":1752305697000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Pigmentation and Retinal Pigment Epithelium Thickness: A Study of the Phenotypic and Genotypic Relationships Between Ocular and Extraocular Pigmented Tissues"],"prefix":"10.1111","volume":"38","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5488-5620","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thomas H","family":"Julian","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL\u2010EBI), Wellcome Genome Campus  Cambridge UK"},{"name":"Division of Evolution, Infection and Genomics, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and 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