scholarly journals A Statistical Procedure for Genome-wide Detection of QTL Hotspots Using Public Databases with Application to Rice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Man-Hsia Yang ◽  
Dong-Hong Wu ◽  
Chen-Hung Kao
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Traits ◽  
Interval Data ◽  
Statistical Procedure ◽  
Phenotypic Traits ◽  
Hotspot Detection ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Biological Studies

ABSTRACTGenome-wide detection of quantitative trait loci (QTL) hotspots underlying variation in many molecular and phenotypic traits has been a key step in various biological studies since the QTL hotspots are highly informative and can be linked to the genes for the quantitative traits. Several statistical methods have been proposed to detect QTL hotspots. These hotspot detection methods rely heavily on permutation tests performed on summarized QTL data or individual-level data (with genotypes and phenotypes) from the genetical genomics experiments. In this article, we propose a statistical procedure for QTL hotspot detection by using the summarized QTL (interval) data collected in public web-accessible databases. First, a simple statistical method based on the uniform distribution is derived to convert the QTL interval data into the expected QTL frequency (EQF) matrix. And then, to account for the correlation structure among traits, the QTLs for correlated traits are grouped together into the same categories to form a reduced EQF matrix. Furthermore, a permutation algorithm on the EQF elements or on the QTL intervals is developed to compute a sliding scale of EQF thresholds, ranging from strict to liberal, for assessing the significance of QTL hotspots. With grouping, much stricter thresholds can be obtained to avoid the detection of spurious hotspots. Real example analysis and simulation study are carried out to illustrate our procedure, evaluate the performances and compare with other methods. It shows that our procedure can control the genome-wide error rates at the target levels, provide appropriate thresholds for correlated data and is comparable to the methods using individual-level data in hotspot detection. Depending on the thresholds used, more than 100 hotspots are detected in GRAMENE rice database. We also perform a genome-wide comparative analysis of the detected hotspots and the known genes collected in the Rice Q-TARO database. The comparative analysis reveals that the hotspots and genes are conformable in the sense that they co-localize closely and are functionally related to relevant traits. Our statistical procedure can provide a framework for exploring the networks among QTL hotspots, genes and quantitative traits in biological studies. The R codes that produce both numerical and graphical outputs of QTL hotspot detection in the genome are available on the worldwide web http://www.stat.sinica.edu.tw/~chkao/.

scholarly journals Cigarette smoking and personality: interrogating causality using Mendelian randomisation

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (13) ◽  
pp. 2197-2205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah M. Sallis ◽  
George Davey Smith ◽  
Marcus R. Munafò
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Smoking Initiation ◽  
Mendelian Randomisation ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Causal Pathways ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Causal Nature

AbstractBackgroundDespite the well-documented association between smoking and personality traits such as neuroticism and extraversion, little is known about the potential causal nature of these findings. If it were possible to unpick the association between personality and smoking, it may be possible to develop tailored smoking interventions that could lead to both improved uptake and efficacy.MethodsRecent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified variants robustly associated with both smoking phenotypes and personality traits. Here we use publicly available GWAS summary statistics in addition to individual-level data from UK Biobank to investigate the link between smoking and personality. We first estimate genetic overlap between traits using LD score regression and then use bidirectional Mendelian randomisation methods to unpick the nature of this relationship.ResultsWe found clear evidence of a modest genetic correlation between smoking behaviours and both neuroticism and extraversion. We found some evidence that personality traits are causally linked to certain smoking phenotypes: among current smokers each additional neuroticism risk allele was associated with smoking an additional 0.07 cigarettes per day (95% CI 0.02–0.12, p = 0.009), and each additional extraversion effect allele was associated with an elevated odds of smoking initiation (OR 1.015, 95% CI 1.01–1.02, p = 9.6 × 10−7).ConclusionWe found some evidence for specific causal pathways from personality to smoking phenotypes, and weaker evidence of an association from smoking initiation to personality. These findings could be used to inform future smoking interventions or to tailor existing schemes.

scholarly journals A unifying framework for summary statistic imputation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Wu ◽  
Eleazar Eskin ◽  
Sriram Sankararaman
Keyword(s):  
Association Studies ◽  
Causal Variant ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Multivariate Normal ◽  
Summary Statistic ◽  
Computationally Efficient ◽  
Imputation Methods ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Level Data

AbstractImputation has been widely utilized to aid and interpret the results of Genome-Wide Association Studies(GWAS). Imputation can increase the power to identify associations when the causal variant was not directly observed or typed in the GWAS. There are two broad classes of methods for imputation. The first class imputes the genotypes at the untyped variants given the genotypes at the typed variants and then performs a statistical test of association at the imputed variants. The second class of methods, summary statistic imputation, directly imputes the association statics at the untyped variants given the association statistics observed at the typed variants. This second class of methods is appealing as it tends to be computationally efficient while only requiring the summary statistics from a study while the former class requires access to individual-level data that can be difficult to obtain. The statistical properties of these two classes of imputation methods have not been fully understood. In this paper, we show that the two classes of imputation methods are equivalent, i.e., have identical asymptotic multivariate normal distributions with zero mean and minor variations in the covariance matrix, under some reasonable assumptions. Using this equivalence, we can understand the effect of imputation methods on power. We show that a commonly employed modification of summary statistic imputation that we term summary statistic imputation with variance re-weighting generally leads to a loss in power. On the other hand, our proposed method, summary statistic imputation without performing variance re-weighting, fully accounts for imputation uncertainty while achieving better power.

scholarly journals Approximate conditional phenotype analysis based on genome wide association summary statistics

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peitao Wu ◽  
Biqi Wang ◽  
Steven A. Lubitz ◽  
Emelia J. Benjamin ◽  
James B. Meigs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Genome Wide Association Study ◽  
Genome Wide Association ◽  
Summary Statistics ◽  
Phenotypic Data ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Level Data ◽  
A Genome ◽  
Phenotype Analysis

AbstractBecause single genetic variants may have pleiotropic effects, one trait can be a confounder in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) that aims to identify loci associated with another trait. A typical approach to address this issue is to perform an additional analysis adjusting for the confounder. However, obtaining conditional results can be time-consuming. We propose an approximate conditional phenotype analysis based on GWAS summary statistics, the covariance between outcome and confounder, and the variant minor allele frequency (MAF). GWAS summary statistics and MAF are taken from GWAS meta-analysis results while the traits covariance may be estimated by two strategies: (i) estimates from a subset of the phenotypic data; or (ii) estimates from published studies. We compare our two strategies with estimates using individual level data from the full GWAS sample (gold standard). A simulation study for both binary and continuous traits demonstrates that our approximate approach is accurate. We apply our method to the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) GWAS and to large-scale cardiometabolic GWAS results. We observed a high consistency of genetic effect size estimates between our method and individual level data analysis. Our approach leads to an efficient way to perform approximate conditional analysis using large-scale GWAS summary statistics.

scholarly journals Bayesian large-scale multiple regression with summary statistics from genome-wide association studies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiang Zhu ◽  
Matthew Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Regression ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Genome Wide Association ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Summary Statistics ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Wide Range

Bayesian methods for large-scale multiple regression provide attractive approaches to the analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS). For example, they can estimate heritability of complex traits, allowing for both polygenic and sparse models; and by incorporating external genomic data into the priors they can increase power and yield new biological insights. However, these methods require access to individual genotypes and phenotypes, which are often not easily available. Here we provide a framework for performing these analyses without individual-level data. Specifically, we introduce a “Regression with Summary Statistics” (RSS) likelihood, which relates the multiple regression coefficients to univariate regression results that are often easily available. The RSS likelihood requires estimates of correlations among covariates (SNPs), which also can be obtained from public databases. We perform Bayesian multiple regression analysis by combining the RSS likelihood with previously-proposed prior distributions, sampling posteriors by Markov chain Monte Carlo. In a wide range of simulations RSS performs similarly to analyses using the individual data, both for estimating heritability and detecting associations. We apply RSS to a GWAS of human height that contains 253,288 individuals typed at 1.06 million SNPs, for which analyses of individual-level data are practically impossible. Estimates of heritability (52%) are consistent with, but more precise, than previous results using subsets of these data. We also identify many previously-unreported loci that show evidence for association with height in our analyses. Software is available at https://github.com/stephenslab/rss.

scholarly journals Genomic prediction using individual-level data and summary statistics from multiple populations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremie Vandenplas ◽  
Mario P.L. Calus ◽  
Gregor Gorjanc
Keyword(s):  
Genomic Prediction ◽  
Joint Analysis ◽  
Substitution Effects ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Summary Statistics ◽  
Multiple Populations ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Allele Substitution

ABSTRACTThis study presents a method for genomic prediction that uses individual-level data and summary statistics from multiple populations. Genome-wide markers are nowadays widely used to predict complex traits, and genomic prediction using multi-population data is an appealing approach to achieve higher prediction accuracies. However, sharing of individual-level data across populations is not always possible. We present a method that enables integration of summary statistics from separate analyses with the available individual-level data. The data can either consist of individuals with single or multiple (weighted) phenotype records per individual. We developed a method based on a hypothetical joint analysis model and absorption of population specific information. We show that population specific information is fully captured by estimated allele substitution effects and the accuracy of those estimates, i.e. the summary statistics. The method gives identical result as the joint analysis of all individual-level data when complete summary statistics are available. We provide a series of easy-to-use approximations that can be used when complete summary statistics are not available or impractical to share. Simulations show that approximations enables integration of different sources of information across a wide range of settings yielding accurate predictions. The method can be readily extended to multiple-traits. In summary, the developed method enables integration of genome-wide data in the individual-level or summary statistics form from multiple populations to obtain more accurate estimates of allele substitution effects and genomic predictions.

scholarly journals Bayesian Multi-SNP Genetic Association Analysis: Control of FDR and Use of Summary Statistics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeji Lee ◽  
Francesca Luca ◽  
Roger Pique-Regi ◽  
Xiaoquan Wen
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Association ◽  
Association Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Trait ◽  
Snp Analysis ◽  
Summary Statistics ◽  
Genetic Association Analysis ◽  
Computational Approaches ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Level Data

AbstractMulti-SNP genetic association analysis has become increasingly important in analyzing data from genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and molecular quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping studies. In this paper, we propose novel computational approaches to address two outstanding issues in Bayesian multi-SNP genetic association analysis: namely, the control of false positive discoveries of identified association signals and the maximization of the efficiency of statistical inference by utilizing summary statistics. Quantifying the strength and uncertainty of genetic association signals has been a long-standing theme in statistical genetics. However, there is a lack of formal statistical procedures that can rigorously control type I errors in multi-SNP analysis. We propose an intuitive hierarchical representation of genetic association signals based on Bayesian posterior probabilities, which subsequently enables rigorous control of false discovery rate (FDR) and construction of Bayesian credible sets. From the perspective of statistical data reduction, we examine the computational approaches of multi-SNP analysis using z-statistics from single-SNP association testing and conclude that they likely yield conservative results comparing to using individual-level data. Built on this result, we propose a set of sufficient summary statistics that can lead to identical results as individual-level data without sacrificing power. Our novel computational approaches are implemented in the software package, DAP-G (https://github.com/xqwen/dap), which applies to both GWASs and genome-wide molecular QTL mapping studies. It is highly computationally efficient and approximately 20 times faster than the state-of-the-art implementation of Bayesian multi-SNP analysis software. We demonstrate the proposed computational approaches using carefully constructed simulation studies and illustrate a complete workflow for multi-SNP analysis of cis expression quantitative trait loci using the whole blood data from the GTEx project.

scholarly journals A Statistical Framework for QTL Hotspot Detection

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Po-Ya Wu ◽  
Man-Hsia Yang ◽  
Chen-Hung Kao
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Correlations ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Correlation Structure ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Hotspot Detection ◽  
Lod Score ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Detection Analysis ◽  
Statistical Framework ◽  
Biological Studies

ABSTRACTQuantitative trait loci (QTL) hotspots (genomic locations enriched in QTL) are a common and notable feature when collecting many QTL for various traits in many areas of biological studies. The QTL hotspots are important and attractive since they are highly informative and may harbor genes for the quantitative traits. So far, the current statistical methods for QTL hotspot detection use either the individual-level data from the genetical genomics experiments or the summarized data from public QTL databases to proceed with the detection analysis. These detection methods attempt to address some of the concerns, including the correlation structure among traits, the magnitude of LOD scores within a hotspot and computational cost, that arise during the process of QTL hotspot detection. In this article, we describe a statistical framework that can handle both types of data as well as address all the concerns at a time for QTL hotspot detection. Our statistical framework directly operates on the QTL matrix and hence has a very cheap computation cost, and is deployed to take advantage of the QTL mapping results for assisting the detection analysis. Two special devices, trait grouping and top γn,α profile, are introduced into the framework. The trait grouping attempts to group the closely linked or pleiotropic traits together to take care of the true linkages and cope with the underestimation of hotspot thresholds due to non-genetic correlations (arising from ignoring the correlation structure among traits), so as to have the ability to obtain much stricter thresholds and dismiss spurious hotspots. The top γn,α profile is designed to outline the LOD-score pattern of a hotspot across the different hotspot architectures, so that it can serve to identify and characterize the types of QTL hotspots with varying sizes and LOD score distributions. Real examples, numerical analysis and simulation study are performed to validate our statistical framework, investigate the detection properties, and also compare with the current methods in QTL hotspot detection. The results demonstrate that the proposed statistical framework can effectively accommodate the correlation structure among traits, identify the types of hotspots and still keep the notable features of easy implementation and fast computation for practical QTL hotspot detection.

scholarly journals A statistical framework for QTL hotspot detection

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Po-Ya Wu ◽  
Man-Hsia Yang ◽  
Chen-Hung Kao
Keyword(s):  
Computational Cost ◽  
Correlation Structure ◽  
Hotspot Detection ◽  
Lod Score ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Detection Analysis ◽  
Statistical Framework ◽  
Biological Studies ◽  
Pleiotropic Qtl ◽  
Score Pattern

AbstractQuantitative trait loci (QTL) hotspots (genomic locations enriched in QTL) are a common and notable feature when collecting many QTL for various traits in many areas of biological studies. The QTL hotspots are important and attractive since they are highly informative and may harbor genes for the quantitative traits. So far, the current statistical methods for QTL hotspot detection use either the individual-level data from the genetical genomics experiments or the summarized data from public QTL databases to proceed with the detection analysis. These methods may suffer from the problems of ignoring the correlation structure among traits, neglecting the magnitude of LOD scores for the QTL, or paying a very high computational cost, which often lead to the detection of excessive spurious hotspots, failure to discover biologically interesting hotspots composed of a small-to-moderate number of QTL with strong LOD scores, and computational intractability, respectively, during the detection process. In this article, we describe a statistical framework that can handle both types of data as well as address all the problems at a time for QTL hotspot detection. Our statistical framework directly operates on the QTL matrix and hence has a very cheap computational cost and is deployed to take advantage of the QTL mapping results for assisting the detection analysis. Two special devices, trait grouping and top γn,α profile, are introduced into the framework. The trait grouping attempts to group the traits controlled by closely linked or pleiotropic QTL together into the same trait groups and randomly allocates these QTL together across the genomic positions separately by trait group to account for the correlation structure among traits, so as to have the ability to obtain much stricter thresholds and dismiss spurious hotspots. The top γn,α profile is designed to outline the LOD-score pattern of QTL in a hotspot across the different hotspot architectures, so that it can serve to identify and characterize the types of QTL hotspots with varying sizes and LOD-score distributions. Real examples, numerical analysis, and simulation study are performed to validate our statistical framework, investigate the detection properties, and also compare with the current methods in QTL hotspot detection. The results demonstrate that the proposed statistical framework can effectively accommodate the correlation structure among traits, identify the types of hotspots, and still keep the notable features of easy implementation and fast computation for practical QTL hotspot detection.

scholarly journals The MR-Base platform supports systematic causal inference across the human phenome

eLife ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gibran Hemani ◽  
Jie Zheng ◽  
Benjamin Elsworth ◽  
Kaitlin H Wade ◽  
Valeriia Haberland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Association Studies ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Application Programming Interface ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Impact

Results from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) can be used to infer causal relationships between phenotypes, using a strategy known as 2-sample Mendelian randomization (2SMR) and bypassing the need for individual-level data. However, 2SMR methods are evolving rapidly and GWAS results are often insufficiently curated, undermining efficient implementation of the approach. We therefore developed MR-Base (http://www.mrbase.org): a platform that integrates a curated database of complete GWAS results (no restrictions according to statistical significance) with an application programming interface, web app and R packages that automate 2SMR. The software includes several sensitivity analyses for assessing the impact of horizontal pleiotropy and other violations of assumptions. The database currently comprises 11 billion single nucleotide polymorphism-trait associations from 1673 GWAS and is updated on a regular basis. Integrating data with software ensures more rigorous application of hypothesis-driven analyses and allows millions of potential causal relationships to be efficiently evaluated in phenome-wide association studies.

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