title: A gene-based test of association using canonical correlation analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) measures the association between two sets of multidimensional variables. We reasoned that CCA could provide an efficient and powerful approach for both univariate and multivariate gene-based tests of association without the need for permutation testing.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared with a commonly used permutation-based approach, CCA (i) is faster; (ii) has appropriate type-I error rate for normally distributed quantitative traits; (iii) provides comparable power for small to medium-sized genes (<100 kb); (iv) provides greater power when the causal variants are uncommon; (v) provides considerably less power for larger genes (≥100 kb) when the causal variants have a broad minor allele frequency (MAF) spectrum. Application to a GWAS of leukocyte levels identified SAFB and a histone gene cluster as novel putative loci harboring multiple independent variants regulating lymphocyte and neutrophil counts.
authors.affiliation: Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, QLD 4029, Australia.
authors.forename: Clara S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Manuel A R
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ferreira
mesh_terms: D005787:Gene Frequency; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D006801:Humans; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable