Evolutionary triangulation: informing genetic association studies with evolutionary evidence.

ABSTRACT: Genetic studies of human diseases have identified many variants associated with pathogenesis and severity. However, most studies have used only statistical association to assess putative relationships to disease, and ignored other factors for evaluation. For example, evolution is a factor that has shaped disease risk, changing allele frequencies as human populations migrated into and inhabited new environments. Since many common variants differ among populations in frequency, as does disease prevalence, we hypothesized that patterns of disease and population structure, taken together, will inform association studies. Thus, the population distributions of allelic risk variants should reflect the distributions of their associated diseases. Evolutionary Triangulation (ET) exploits this evolut

SUBMITTER: Huang M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4818851 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature