Assessing linkage of immunoglobulin E using a meta-analysis approach

We report results using a new meta-analysis procedure to assess linkage of immunoglobulin E (IgE), an asthma related quantitative trait, using the nine data sets provided by the Genetic Analysis Workshop 12. This meta-analysis procedure combines univariate Haseman-Elston statistics across studies gaining strength by collating possibly distinct marker maps. We performed univariate Haseman-Elston over all data sets and identified linkage (p < 0.05) to some marker in at least one study on virtually every chromosome. Using the proposed meta-analysis procedure, we detected suggestive linkage (p-value < 7.4 × 10^-4, [Lander and Kruglyak, Nat Genet 11:214-47, 1995]) for two regions on chromosome 4 (around 50 and 150 cM) and one region on chromosome 11 (around 125 cM). We also identified areas which were evocative (p-value < 0.02) for linkage: chr 5 ∼40 cM, chr 7 ∼98 cM, chr 9 ∼65 cM, chr 13 ∼110 cM, chr 16 ∼10 cM and ∼105 cM, chr 17 ∼70 cM, and chr 20 ∼25 cM.