title: A method dealing with a large number of correlated traits in a linkage genome scan.
abstract: We propose a method to perform linkage genome scans for many correlated traits in the Genetic Analysis Workshop 15 (GAW15) data. The proposed method has two steps: first, we use a clustering method to find the tight clusters of the traits and use the first principal component (PC) of the traits in each cluster to represent the cluster; second, we perform a linkage scan for each cluster by using the representative trait of the cluster. The results of applying the method to the GAW15 Problem 1 data indicate that most of the traits in the same cluster have the same regulators, and the representative trait measure, the first PC, can explain a large part of the total variation of all the traits in each cluster. Furthermore, considering one cluster of traits at a time may yield more linkage signals than considering traits individually.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematical Sciences, Michigan Technological University, 2011B Woodmar Drive, Houghton, Michigan 49931, USA. tfeng@mtu.edu
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Shuanglin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qiuying
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Sha