Transmission/Disequilibrium Tests Incorporating Unaffected Offspring |
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| Authors: | Qinyu Wei Yuanli Chen Zheng Zeng Chang Shu Lu Long Jianhua Lu Yangxin Huang Ping Yin |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.; 2. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States of America.; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, United States of America, |
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| Abstract: | We propose a new method for family-based tests of association and linkage called transmission/disequilibrium tests incorporating unaffected offspring (TDTU). This new approach, constructed based on transmission/disequilibrium tests for quantitative traits (QTDT), provides a natural extension of the transmission/disequilibrium test (TDT) to utilize transmission information from heterozygous parents to their unaffected offspring as well as the affected offspring from ascertained nuclear families. TDTU can be used in various study designs and can accommodate all types of independent nuclear families with at least one affected offspring. When the study sample contains only case-parent trios, the TDTU is equivalent to TDT. Informative-transmission disequilibrium test (i-TDT) and generalized disequilibrium test(GDT) are another two methods that can use information of both unaffected offspring and affected offspring. In contract to i-TDT and GDT, the test statistic of TDTU is simpler and more explicit, and can be implemented more easily. Through computer simulations, we demonstrate that power of the TDTU is slightly higher compared to i-TDT and GDT. All the three methods are more powerful than method that uses affected offspring only, suggesting that unaffected siblings also provide information about linkage and association. |
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