A family-based test for correlation between gene expression and trait values.

ABSTRACT: Advances in microarray technology have made it attractive to combine information on clinical traits, marker genotypes, and comprehensive gene expression from family studies to dissect complex disease genetics. Without accounting for family structure, methods that test for association between a trait and gene-expression levels can be misleading. We demonstrate that the standard unstratified test based on Pearson's correlation coefficient can produce spurious results when applied to family data, and we present a stratified family expression association test (FEXAT). We illustrate the utility of the FEXAT via simulation and an application to gene-expression data from lymphoblastoid cell lines from four CEPH families. The FEXAT has a smaller estimated false-discovery rate than the standard tes

SUBMITTER: Kraft P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1180286 | biostudies-literature | 2003 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature