Multi-trait analysis of rare-variant association summary statistics using MTAR.

ABSTRACT: Integrating association evidence across multiple traits can improve the power of gene discovery and reveal pleiotropy. Most multi-trait analysis methods focus on individual common variants in genome-wide association studies. Here, we introduce multi-trait analysis of rare-variant associations (MTAR), a framework for joint analysis of association summary statistics between multiple rare variants and different traits. MTAR achieves substantial power gain by leveraging the genome-wide genetic correlation measure to inform the degree of gene-level effect heterogeneity across traits. We apply MTAR to rare-variant summary statistics for three lipid traits in the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium. 99 genome-wide significant genes were identified in the single-trait-based tests, and MTAR increases

SUBMITTER: Luo L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7275056 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature