title: SNP by SNP by environment interaction network of alcoholism.
abstract: Alcoholism has a strong genetic component. Twin studies have demonstrated the heritability of a large proportion of phenotypic variance of alcoholism ranging from 50-80%. The search for genetic variants associated with this complex behavior has epitomized sequence-based studies for nearly a decade. The limited success of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), possibly precipitated by the polygenic nature of complex traits and behaviors, however, has demonstrated the need for novel, multivariate models capable of quantitatively capturing interactions between a host of genetic variants and their association with non-genetic factors. In this regard, capturing the network of SNP by SNP or SNP by environment interactions has recently gained much interest.
  
  
  
  Here, we assessed 3,776 individuals to construct a network capable of detecting and quantifying the interactions within and between plausible genetic and environmental factors of alcoholism. In this regard, we propose the use of first-order dependence tree of maximum weight as a potential statistical learning technique to delineate the pattern of dependencies underpinning such a complex trait. Using a predictive based analysis, we further rank the genes, demographic factors, biological pathways, and the interactions represented by our SNP [Formula: see text]SNP[Formula: see text]E network. The proposed framework is quite general and can be potentially applied to the study of other complex traits.
authors.affiliation: School of Engineering, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. amin.zollanvari@nu.edu.kz.|Center for Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. amin.zollanvari@nu.edu.kz.
authors.forename: Amin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zollanvari
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.|Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Gil
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Alterovitz
mesh_terms: D000437:Alcoholism / Q000235:genetics*; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D006801:Humans; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000235:genetics; D049490:Systems Biology
keywords: Alcoholism; Environment; GWAS; Interaction; Network; SNP