Modeling gene-environment interactions in longitudinal family studies: a comparison of methods and their application to the association between the IGF pathway and childhood obesity.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The interactive effect of the IGF pathway genes with the environment may contribute to childhood obesity. Such gene-environment interactions can take on complex forms. Detecting those relationships using longitudinal family studies requires simultaneously accounting for correlations within individuals and families.

Methods

We studied three methods for detecting interaction effects in longitudinal family studies. The twin model and the nonparametric partition-based score test utilized individual outcome averages, whereas the linear mixed model used all available longitudinal data points. Simulation experiments were performed to evaluate the methods' power to detect different gene-environment interaction relationships. These methods were applied to the Quebec Newbor

SUBMITTER: Wang C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6329142 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature