Identifying disease associated genes by network propagation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Genome-wide association studies have identified many individual genes associated with complex traits. However, pathway and network information have not been fully exploited in searches for genetic determinants, and including this information may increase our understanding of the underlying biology of common diseases.

Results

In this study, we propose a framework to address this problem in a principled way, with the underlying hypothesis that complex disease operates through multiple connected genes. Associations inferred from GWAS are translated into prior scores for vertices in a protein-protein interaction network, and these scores are propagated through the network. Permutation is used to select genes that are guilty-by-association and thus consistently obtain

SUBMITTER: Qian Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4080512 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature