mbmdr: an R package for exploring gene-gene interactions associated with binary or quantitative traits.
CONCLUSIONS
We describe mbmdr, an R package for implementing the model-based multifactor dimensionality reduction (MB-MDR) method. MB-MDR has been proposed by Calle et al. as a dimension reduction method for exploring gene-gene interactions in case-control association studies. It is an extension of the popular multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) method of Ritchie et al. allowing a more flexible definition of risk cells. In MB-MDR, risk categories are defined using a regression model which allows adjustment for covariates and main effects and, in addition to the classical low risk and high risk categories, MB-MDR considers a third category of indeterminate or not informative cells. An important improvement added to the current mbmdr algorithm with respect to the original MB-MDR formulation in Calle et al. and also to the classical MDR approach, is the extension of the methodology to different outcome types. While MB-MDR was initially proposed for binary traits in the context of case-control studies, the mbmdr package provides options to analyze both binary or quantitative traits for unrelated individuals.


BACKGROUND
http://cran.r-project.org/.
Calle
M Luz
ML
Department of Systems Biology, Universitat de Vic. malu.calle@uvic.cat
Urrea
Víctor
V
Malats
Núria
N
Van Steen
Kristel
K
D000465:Algorithms; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004843:Epistasis, Genetic; D015870:Gene Expression; D005838:Genotype; D008957:Models, Genetic; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012984:Software