Optimal methods for meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies.

ABSTRACT: Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies involves testing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using summary statistics that are weighted sums of site-specific score or Wald statistics. This approach avoids having to pool individual-level data. We describe the weights that maximize the power of the summary statistics. For small effect-sizes, any choice of weights yields summary Wald and score statistics with the same power, and the optimal weights are proportional to the square roots of the sites' Fisher information for the SNP's regression coefficient. When SNP effect size is constant across sites, the optimal summary Wald statistic is the well-known inverse-variance-weighted combination of estimated regression coefficients, divided by its standard deviation. We give simple appr

SUBMITTER: Zhou B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3197760 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature