Dataset Information

Mortality selection in a genetic sample and implications for association studies.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mortality selection occurs when a non-random subset of a population of interest has died before data collection and is unobserved in the data. Mortality selection is of general concern in the social and health sciences, but has received little attention in genetic epidemiology. We tested the hypothesis that mortality selection may bias genetic association estimates, using data from the US-based Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

Methods

We tested mortality selection into the HRS genetic database by comparing HRS respondents who survive until genetic data collection in 2006 with those who do not. We next modelled mortality selection on demographic, health and social characteristics to calculate mortality selection probability weights. We analysed polygenic score associations with several traits before and after applying inverse-probability weighting to account for mortality selection. We tested simple associations and time-varying genetic associations (i.e. gene-by-cohort interactions).

Results

We observed mortality selection into the HRS genetic database on demographic, health and social characteristics. Correction for mortality selection using inverse probability weighting methods did not change simple association estimates. However, using these methods did change estimates of gene-by-cohort interaction effects. Correction for mortality selection changed gene-by-cohort interaction estimates in the opposite direction from increased mortality selection based on analysis of HRS respondents surviving through 2012.

Conclusions

Mortality selection may bias estimates of gene-by-cohort interaction effects. Analyses of HRS data can adjust for mortality selection associated with observables by including probability weights. Mortality selection is a potential confounder of genetic association studies, but the magnitude of confounding varies by trait.

SUBMITTER: Domingue BW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5837559 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Mortality selection in a genetic sample and implications for association studies.

Domingue Benjamin W BW Belsky Daniel W DW Harrati Amal A Conley Dalton D Weir David R DR Boardman Jason D JD

International journal of epidemiology 20170801 4

<h4>Background</h4>Mortality selection occurs when a non-random subset of a population of interest has died before data collection and is unobserved in the data. Mortality selection is of general concern in the social and health sciences, but has received little attention in genetic epidemiology. We tested the hypothesis that mortality selection may bias genetic association estimates, using data from the US-based Health and Retirement Study (HRS).<h4>Methods</h4>We tested mortality selection int ...[more]

PMID: 28402496

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Project description:Post-GWAS analysis, in many cases, focuses on fine-mapping targeted genetic regions discovered at GWAS-stage; that is, the aim is to pinpoint potential causal variants and susceptibility genes for complex traits and disease outcomes using next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. Large-scale GWAS cohorts are necessary to identify target regions given the typically modest genetic effect sizes. In this context, two-phase sampling design and analysis is a cost-reduction technique that utilizes data collected during phase 1 GWAS to select an informative subsample for phase 2 sequencing. The main goal is to make inference for genetic variants measured via NGS by efficiently combining data from phases 1 and 2. We propose two approaches for selecting a phase 2 design under a budget constraint. The first method identifies sampling fractions that select a phase 2 design yielding an asymptotic variance covariance matrix with certain optimal characteristics, for example, smallest trace, via Lagrange multipliers (LM). The second relies on a genetic algorithm (GA) with a defined fitness function to identify exactly a phase 2 subsample. We perform comprehensive simulation studies to evaluate the empirical properties of the proposed designs for a genetic association study of a quantitative trait. We compare our methods against two ranked designs: residual-dependent sampling and a recently identified optimal design. Our findings demonstrate that the proposed designs, GA in particular, can render competitive power in combined phase 1 and 2 analysis compared with alternative designs while preserving type 1 error control. These results are especially evident under the more practical scenario where design values need to be defined a priori and are subject to misspecification. We illustrate the proposed methods in a study of triglyceride levels in the North Finland Birth Cohort of 1966. R code to reproduce our results is available at github.com/egosv/TwoPhase_postGWAS.

Dataset Information

Mortality selection in a genetic sample and implications for association studies.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Mortality selection in a genetic sample and implications for association studies.

Similar Datasets

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