Bioinformatics Advance Access originally published online on January 12, 2006
Bioinformatics 2006 22(5):573-580; doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btk050
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Multiple association analysis via simulated annealing (MASSA)
1Institut Catalá de Reçerca i Estudis Avançats Pg Lluis Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain
2Departament de Ciència Animal i del Aliments, Facultat de Veterinària, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
Summary: Genome-wide association studies are now technically feasible and likely to become a fundamental tool in unraveling the ultimate genetic basis of complex traits. However, new statistical and computational methods need to be developed to extract the maximum information in a realistic computing time. Here we propose a new method for multiple association analysis via simulated annealing that allows for epistasis and any number of markers. It consists of finding the model with lowest Bayesian information criterion using simulated annealing. The data are described by means of a mixed model and new alternative models are proposed using a set of rules, e.g. new sites can be added (or deleted), or new epistatic interactions can be included between existing genetic factors. The method is illustrated with simulated and real data.
Availability: An executable version of the program (MASSA) running under the Linux OS is freely available, together with documentation, at http://www.icrea.es/pag.asp?id=Miguel.Perez
Contact: miguel.perez{at}uab.es
Received on October 20, 2005; revised on January 5, 2006; accepted on January 9, 2006