Modeling Complex Disease with Demographic and Environmental Covariates and a Candidate Gene Marker

We randomly chose replicates 28 and 29 of the simulated data sets of Genetic Analysis Workshop 12 to model the dependence of affection status on covariates, quantitative traits, and genes using all living pedigree members. First we explored the relationship of affection status to demographic and environmental factors using logistic regression and the Cox proportional hazards models. In the second stage of our analyses the generalized transmission disequilibrium test (GTDT) was applied to nuclear families with at least two affected siblings to select single markers and high-risk alleles, which were tested in the population association analyses including all pedigree members. Multiple logistic regression models were fitted to investigate the joint contributions of genetic and nongenetic factors and a block-recursive modeling approach was adopted to study inherent hierarchical dependence structure in the data. We found that allele 2 on marker 35 of chromosome 6 is associated with higher risk compared with the other 3 alleles of this marker. In addition to this significant genetic effect, age at exam and four of the five quantitative traits (QT1, QT2, QT4, and QT5) had a significant association with the disease. Our results were obtained without knowledge of the true disease generating models.