Abstract
Background: Genetic mapping has been used as a tool to study the genetic architecture of complex traits by localizing their underlying quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Statistical methods for genetic mapping rely on a key assumption, that is, traits obey a parametric distribution. However, in practice real data may not perfectly follow the specified distribution.Results: Here, we derive a robust statistical approach for QTL mapping that accommodates a certain degree of misspecification of the true model by incorporating integrated square errors into the genetic mapping framework. A hypothesis testing is formulated by defining a new test statistics - energy difference.Conclusions: Simulation studies were performed to investigate the statistical properties of this approach and compare these properties with those from traditional maximum likelihood and non-parametric QTL mapping approaches. Lastly, analyses of real examples were conducted to demonstrate the usefulness and utilization of the new approach in a practical genetic setting.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 20 |
Journal | BMC Genetics |
Volume | 13 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 23 2012 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Genetics
- Genetics(clinical)