Reduction of sample heterogeneity through use of population substructure: an example from a population of African American families with sarcoidosis.

ABSTRACT: Sarcoidosis is a granulomatous inflammatory disorder of complex etiology with significant linkage to chromosome 5, and marginal linkage was observed to five other chromosomes in African Americans (AAs) in our previously published genome scan. Because genetic factors underlying complex disease are often population specific, genetic analysis of samples with diverse ancestry (i.e., ethnic confounding) can lead to loss of power. Ethnic confounding is often addressed by stratifying on self-reported race, a controversial and less-than-perfect construct. Here, we propose linkage analysis stratified by genetically determined ancestry as an alternative approach for reducing ethnic confounding. Using data from the 380 microsatellite markers genotyped in the aforementioned genome scan, we clustered A

SUBMITTER: Thompson CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1592564 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature