"Statistical Approaches to Detect Intergenerational Genetic Effects"
Janet Sinsheimer, Ph.D., UCLA
September 20, 2011 @ 3:30 - 4:30 pm
Location: 701 Blockley Hall
Biostatistics
TITLE: Statistical Approaches to Detect Intergenerational Genetic Effects
ABSTRACT: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have failed to account for more than a modest amount of the disease risk attributed to genetic variants. Intergenerational effects provide one potential source of this missing heritability but GWAS using unrelated individuals cannot detect these effects. Thus, alternative study designs and statistical methods are needed. I will present two recent approaches we have taken to understand intergenerational effects. First, I will discuss the extended maternal fetal genotype (EMFG) incompatibility test, which can estimate any combination of maternal effects, offspring effects, and their interactions at polymorphic loci or multiple SNPs, and show some illustrative examples using both simulated and actual pedigree data. Second, I will discuss novel study designs and statistical approaches that can be used to dissect maternally inherited effects from maternal environment. More generally, I will demonstrate how pedigrees can be used to understand intergenerational genetic effects as well as providing an opportunity to examine alternative, non-causal mechanisms.
