SNPInterForest: A new method for detecting epistatic interactions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multiple genetic factors and their interactive effects are speculated to contribute to complex diseases. Detecting such genetic interactive effects, i.e., epistatic interactions, however, remains a significant challenge in large-scal...

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Main Authors: Yoshida Makiko, Koike Asako
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2011-12-01
Series:BMC Bioinformatics
Online Access:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/12/469
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author Yoshida Makiko
Koike Asako
author_facet Yoshida Makiko
Koike Asako
author_sort Yoshida Makiko
collection DOAJ
description <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multiple genetic factors and their interactive effects are speculated to contribute to complex diseases. Detecting such genetic interactive effects, i.e., epistatic interactions, however, remains a significant challenge in large-scale association studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have developed a new method, named SNPInterForest, for identifying epistatic interactions by extending an ensemble learning technique called random forest. Random forest is a predictive method that has been proposed for use in discovering single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are most predictive of the disease status in association studies. However, it is less sensitive to SNPs with little marginal effect. Furthermore, it does not natively exhibit information on interaction patterns of susceptibility SNPs. We extended the random forest framework to overcome the above limitations by means of (i) modifying the construction of the random forest and (ii) implementing a procedure for extracting interaction patterns from the constructed random forest. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated by simulated data under a wide spectrum of disease models. SNPInterForest performed very well in successfully identifying pure epistatic interactions with high precision and was still more than capable of concurrently identifying multiple interactions under the existence of genetic heterogeneity. It was also performed on real GWAS data of rheumatoid arthritis from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC), and novel potential interactions were reported.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>SNPInterForest, offering an efficient means to detect epistatic interactions without statistical analyses, is promising for practical use as a way to reveal the epistatic interactions involved in common complex diseases.</p>
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spelling doaj.art-7fd3a6593b0d4a31a38dbc7a58f24b8a2022-12-22T02:59:16ZengBMCBMC Bioinformatics1471-21052011-12-0112146910.1186/1471-2105-12-469SNPInterForest: A new method for detecting epistatic interactionsYoshida MakikoKoike Asako<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multiple genetic factors and their interactive effects are speculated to contribute to complex diseases. Detecting such genetic interactive effects, i.e., epistatic interactions, however, remains a significant challenge in large-scale association studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have developed a new method, named SNPInterForest, for identifying epistatic interactions by extending an ensemble learning technique called random forest. Random forest is a predictive method that has been proposed for use in discovering single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are most predictive of the disease status in association studies. However, it is less sensitive to SNPs with little marginal effect. Furthermore, it does not natively exhibit information on interaction patterns of susceptibility SNPs. We extended the random forest framework to overcome the above limitations by means of (i) modifying the construction of the random forest and (ii) implementing a procedure for extracting interaction patterns from the constructed random forest. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated by simulated data under a wide spectrum of disease models. SNPInterForest performed very well in successfully identifying pure epistatic interactions with high precision and was still more than capable of concurrently identifying multiple interactions under the existence of genetic heterogeneity. It was also performed on real GWAS data of rheumatoid arthritis from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC), and novel potential interactions were reported.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>SNPInterForest, offering an efficient means to detect epistatic interactions without statistical analyses, is promising for practical use as a way to reveal the epistatic interactions involved in common complex diseases.</p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/12/469
spellingShingle Yoshida Makiko
Koike Asako
SNPInterForest: A new method for detecting epistatic interactions
BMC Bioinformatics
title SNPInterForest: A new method for detecting epistatic interactions
title_full SNPInterForest: A new method for detecting epistatic interactions
title_fullStr SNPInterForest: A new method for detecting epistatic interactions
title_full_unstemmed SNPInterForest: A new method for detecting epistatic interactions
title_short SNPInterForest: A new method for detecting epistatic interactions
title_sort snpinterforest a new method for detecting epistatic interactions
url http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/12/469
work_keys_str_mv AT yoshidamakiko snpinterforestanewmethodfordetectingepistaticinteractions
AT koikeasako snpinterforestanewmethodfordetectingepistaticinteractions