title: FamAgg: an R package to evaluate familial aggregation of traits in large pedigrees.
abstract: Familial aggregation analysis is the first fundamental step to perform when assessing the extent of genetic background of a disease. However, there is a lack of software to analyze the familial clustering of complex phenotypes in very large pedigrees. Such pedigrees can be utilized to calculate measures that express trait aggregation on both the family and individual level, providing valuable directions in choosing families for detailed follow-up studies. We developed FamAgg, an open source R package that contains both established and novel methods to investigate familial aggregation of traits in large pedigrees. We demonstrate its use and interpretation by analyzing a publicly available cancer dataset with more than 20 000 participants distributed across approximately 400 families.
  
  
  
  The FamAgg package is freely available at the Bioconductor repository, http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/FamAgg
  
  
  
  Christian.Weichenberger@eurac.edu
  
  
  
  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) (Affiliated to the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany), Bolzano 39100, Italy and.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rainer
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Center for Statistical Genetics, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Taliun
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) (Affiliated to the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany), Bolzano 39100, Italy and.
authors.forename: Yuri
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: D'Elia
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) (Affiliated to the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany), Bolzano 39100, Italy and.
authors.forename: Cristian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pattaro
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) (Affiliated to the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany), Bolzano 39100, Italy and.
authors.forename: Francisco S
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Domingues
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) (Affiliated to the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany), Bolzano 39100, Italy and.
authors.forename: Christian X
authors.initials: CX
authors.lastname: Weichenberger
mesh_terms: D010375:Pedigree; D012984:Software