title: Probability genotype imputation method and integrated weighted lasso for QTL identification.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Many QTL studies have two common features: (1) often there is missing marker information, (2) among many markers involved in the biological process only a few are causal. In statistics, the second issue falls under the headings "sparsity" and "causal inference". The goal of this work is to develop a two-step statistical methodology for QTL mapping for markers with binary genotypes. The first step introduces a novel imputation method for missing genotypes. Outcomes of the proposed imputation method are probabilities which serve as weights to the second step, namely in weighted lasso. The sparse phenotype inference is employed to select a set of predictive markers for the trait of interest.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Simulation studies validate the proposed methodology under a wide range of realistic settings. Furthermore, the methodology outperforms alternative imputation and variable selection methods in such studies. The methodology was applied to an Arabidopsis experiment, containing 69 markers for 165 recombinant inbred lines of a F8 generation. The results confirm previously identified regions, however several new markers are also found. On the basis of the inferred ROC behavior these markers show good potential for being real, especially for the germination trait Gmax.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our imputation method shows higher accuracy in terms of sensitivity and specificity compared to alternative imputation method. Also, the proposed weighted lasso outperforms commonly practiced multiple regression as well as the traditional lasso and adaptive lasso with three weighting schemes. This means that under realistic missing data settings this methodology can be used for QTL identification.
authors.affiliation: Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Groningen, Groningen 9747 AG, The Netherlands. n.demetrashvili@rug.nl.
authors.forename: Nino
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Demetrashvili
authors.forename: Edwin R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Van den Heuvel
authors.forename: Ernst C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Wit
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D019540:Area Under Curve; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D032461:Chromosomes, Plant / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D005819:Genetic Markers; D005838:Genotype; D018525:Germination / Q000235:genetics; D008957:Models, Genetic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010641:Phenotype; D011336:Probability; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D012372:ROC Curve
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers