RL-SKAT: An Exact and Efficient Score Test for Heritability and Set Tests.

ABSTRACT: Testing for the existence of variance components in linear mixed models is a fundamental task in many applicative fields. In statistical genetics, the score test has recently become instrumental in the task of testing an association between a set of genetic markers and a phenotype. With few markers, this amounts to set-based variance component tests, which attempt to increase power in association studies by aggregating weak individual effects. When the entire genome is considered, it allows testing for the heritability of a phenotype, defined as the proportion of phenotypic variance explained by genetics. In the popular score-based Sequence Kernel Association Test (SKAT) method, the assumed distribution of the score test statistic is uncalibrated in small samples, with a correction being c

SUBMITTER: Schweiger R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5714447 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature