The Annals of Applied Statistics

Leveraging local identity-by-descent increases the power of case/control GWAS with related individuals

Joshua N. Sampson, Bill Wheeler, Peng Li, and Jianxin Shi

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Abstract

Large case/control Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) often include groups of related individuals with known relationships. When testing for associations at a given locus, current methods incorporate only the familial relationships between individuals. Here, we introduce the chromosome-based Quasi Likelihood Score (cQLS) statistic that incorporates local Identity-By-Descent (IBD) to increase the power to detect associations. In studies robust to population stratification, such as those with case/control sibling pairs, simulations show that the study power can be increased by over 50%. In our example, a GWAS examining late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, the $p$-values among the most strongly associated SNPs in the APOE gene tend to decrease, with the smallest $p$-value decreasing from $1.23\times10^{-8}$ to $7.70\times10^{-9}$. Furthermore, as a part of our simulations, we reevaluate our expectations about the use of families in GWAS. We show that, although adding only half as many unique chromosomes, genotyping affected siblings is more efficient than genotyping randomly ascertained cases. We also show that genotyping cases with a family history of disease will be less beneficial when searching for SNPs with smaller effect sizes.

Article information

Source
Ann. Appl. Stat., Volume 8, Number 2 (2014), 974-998.

Dates
First available in Project Euclid: 1 July 2014

Permanent link to this document
https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aoas/1404229522

Digital Object Identifier
doi:10.1214/14-AOAS715

Mathematical Reviews number (MathSciNet)
MR3262542

Zentralblatt MATH identifier
06333784

Keywords
cQLS GWAS related individuals case–control

Citation

Sampson, Joshua N.; Wheeler, Bill; Li, Peng; Shi, Jianxin. Leveraging local identity-by-descent increases the power of case/control GWAS with related individuals. Ann. Appl. Stat. 8 (2014), no. 2, 974--998. doi:10.1214/14-AOAS715. https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aoas/1404229522


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