Combined linkage and family-based association analysis improves candidate gene detection in Genetic Analysis Workshop 18 simulation data

Because the genotype-phenotype correlation information is investigated differently by linkage and association analyses, various efforts have been made to model linkage and association jointly. However, joint modeling methods are usually computationally intensive; hence they cannot currently accommodate large pedigrees with dense markers. This article proposes a simple method to combine the linkage and association evidence with the aim of improving the detection power of disease susceptibility genes. Our detection power comparisons show that the combined linkage-association p values can improve remarkably the causal gene detection power in Genetic Analysis Workshop 18 simulation data.