Title: A novel strategy for detecting multiple loci in Genome-Wide Association Studies of complex diseases

Authors: Jing Li

Addresses: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA

Abstract: Large-scale Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) for complex diseases are increasingly common, due to recent advances in genotyping technology. Gene-gene interactions play an important role in the etiology of complex diseases and have to be addressed in GWAS. In this paper, an efficient strategy based on two-stage analysis is proposed. It combines a single-locus approach with a Goodness-Of-Fit (GOF) test in stage one, and selects a promising subset of SNPs to be modelled using a full interaction model in stage two. Extensive simulations using different disease models with different levels of epistasis demonstrate that it achieves higher power than existing approaches.

Keywords: genome wide association studies; GWAS; gene-gene interactions; two-stage analysis; case control studies; bioinformatics; multiple loci; complex diseases; modelling; simulation; genotyping.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBRA.2008.018342

International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications, 2008 Vol.4 No.2, pp.150 - 163

Published online: 17 May 2008 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article