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Association mapping has been most widely applied to the study of human disease, specifically in the form of a genome-wide association study (GWAS). A genome-wide association study is performed by scanning an entire genome for SNPs associated with a particular trait of interest, or in the case of human disease, with a particular disease of interest.
A quantitative trait locus (QTL) is a locus (section of DNA) that correlates with variation of a quantitative trait in the phenotype of a population of organisms. [1] QTLs are mapped by identifying which molecular markers (such as SNPs or AFLPs) correlate with an observed trait.
Standard gene mapping software packages can be used, although it is often faster to use custom code such as QTL Reaper or the web-based eQTL mapping system GeneNetwork. GeneNetwork hosts many large eQTL mapping data sets and provide access to fast algorithms to map single loci and epistatic interactions. As is true in all QTL mapping studies ...
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping examine common variation across the entire genome, and as such can detect a new region of interest that is in or near a potential candidate gene.
Hence, GWAS is a non-candidate-driven approach, in contrast to gene-specific candidate-driven studies. GWA studies identify SNPs and other variants in DNA associated with a disease, but they cannot on their own specify which genes are causal. [1] [2] [3] The first successful GWAS published in 2002 studied myocardial infarction. [4]
A GWAS is done with populations that mate randomly because all the genetic variants are tested at once. Then researchers can compare the different alleles at a locus. It is similar to QTL mapping. [20] The most common set-up for a GWAS is a case study which creates two populations one with the trait we are looking at and one without the trait.
There are two distinctive mapping approaches used in the field of genome mapping: genetic maps (also known as linkage maps) [7] and physical maps. [3] While both maps are a collection of genetic markers and gene loci, [8] genetic maps' distances are based on the genetic linkage information, while physical maps use actual physical distances usually measured in number of base pairs.
Genetic architecture is the underlying genetic basis of a phenotypic trait and its variational properties. [1] Phenotypic variation for quantitative traits is, at the most basic level, the result of the segregation of alleles at quantitative trait loci (QTL). [2]