The worldwide burden of tuberculosis (TB) remains an enormous problem, and is particularly severe in the admixed South African Coloured (SAC) population residing in the Western Cape. Despite evidence from twin studies suggesting a strong genetic component to TB resistance, only a few loci have been identified to date. In this work, we conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS), meta-analysi...

In the last decade the role of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) emerges not only as key elements of posttranscriptional gene silencing, but also as important players of epigenetic regulation. New kind and new functions of ncRNAs are continuously discovered and one of their most important roles is the mediation of environmental signals, both physical and chemical. The activity of cytoplasmic short ncRNA ...

The primary goal of genome-wide association studies is to determine which genetic markers are associated with genetic traits, most commonly human diseases. As a result of the "large p, small n" nature of genome-wide association study data sets, and especially because of the collinearity due to linkage disequilibrium, multivariate regression results in an ill-posed problem. To overcome these obs...

Genetic association studies have become an important part of our scientific landscape. This commentary discusses some basic scientific issues which should be considered when reporting and evaluating such studies including SNP Discovery, Genotyping and Haplotype Analysis; Population Size, Matching of Cases and Controls, and Population Stratification; Phenotype Definition and Multiple Related Phe...

MOTIVATION As an epigenetic alteration, DNA methylation plays an important role in epigenetic controls of gene transcription. Recent advances in genome-wide scan of DNA methylation provide great opportunities in studying the impact of DNA methylation on many human diseases including various types of cancer. Due to the unique feature of this type of data, applicable statistical methods are limit...

Genetic Correlation Between Schizophrenia and Epilepsy Neuropathological, clinical, and epidemiological data suggest that schizophrenia and epilepsy are associated.1 Reported estimates of the prevalence of schizophrenia among people with epilepsy vary, depending on phenotypic definition, but may be around 7%.2 One hypothesis to account for the relationship is that the 2 diseases share a common ...

In the analysis of genome-wide association (GWA) data, the aim is to detect statistical associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the disease or trait of interest. These SNPs, or the particular regions of the genome they implicate, are then considered for further study. We demonstrate through a comprehensive simulation study that the inclusion of additional, biologically r...

Epigenetics has attracted considerable attention with respect to its potential value in many areas of agricultural production, particularly under conditions where the environment can be manipulated or natural variation exists. Here we introduce key concepts and definitions of epigenetic mechanisms, including DNA methylation, histone modifications and non-coding RNA, review the current understan...

Most common diseases are caused by multiple genetic and environmental factors. In the last 2 years, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified polymorphisms that are associated with risk to common disease, but the effect of any one risk allele is typically small. By combining information from many risk variants, will it be possible to predict accurately each individual person's gene...