Measures of exposure impact genetic association studies: an example in vitamin K levels and VKORC1.

ABSTRACT: Studies assessing the impact of gene-environment interactions on common human diseases and traits have been relatively few for many reasons. One often acknowledged reason is that it is difficult to accurately measure the environment or exposure. Indeed, most large-scale epidemiologic studies use questionnaires to assess and measure past and current exposure levels. While questionnaires may be cost-effective, the data may or may not accurately represent the exposure compared with more direct measurements (e.g., self-reported current smoking status versus direct measurement for cotinine levels). Much like phenotyping, the choice in how an exposure is measured may impact downstream tests of genetic association and gene-environment interaction studies. As a case study, we performed tests of as

SUBMITTER: Crawford DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4299921 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature