Comparison of Heritability Estimation and Linkage Analysis for Multiple Traits Using Principal Component Analyses.

Genet Epidemiol
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

A disease trait often can be characterized by multiple phenotypic measurements that can provide complementary information on disease etiology, physiology, or clinical manifestations. Given that multiple phenotypes may be correlated and reflect common underlying genetic mechanisms, the use of multivariate analysis of multiple traits may improve statistical power to detect genes and variants underlying complex traits. The literature, however, has been unclear as to the optimal approach for analyzing multiple correlated traits. In this study, heritability and linkage analysis was performed for six obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) related phenotypes, as well as principal components of the phenotypes and principal components of the heritability (PCHs) using the data from Cleveland Family Study, which include both African and European American families. Our study demonstrates that principal components generally result in higher heritability and linkage evidence than individual traits. Furthermore, the PCHs can be transferred across populations, strongly suggesting that these PCHs reflect traits with common underlying genetic mechanisms for OSAHS across populations. Thus, PCHs can provide useful traits for using data on multiple phenotypes and for genetic studies of trans-ethnic populations.

Year of Publication
2016
Journal
Genet Epidemiol
Volume
40
Issue
3
Pages
222-32
Date Published
2016 Apr
ISSN
1098-2272
DOI
10.1002/gepi.21957
PubMed ID
27027516
PubMed Central ID
PMC5083066
Links
Grant list
R01 HG003054 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
P41 RR003655 / RR / NCRR NIH HHS / United States
R01 HL046380 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
P30 ES000002 / ES / NIEHS NIH HHS / United States
R01 HL113338 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
HL113338 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
HL046380 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
HG003054 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
RR03655 / RR / NCRR NIH HHS / United States
KL2 RR024990 / RR / NCRR NIH HHS / United States
T32 HL007567 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
RR024990 / RR / NCRR NIH HHS / United States