Linkage Analysis for Complex Diseases Using Variance Component Analysis: SOLAR

Variance component linkage analysis has become one of the most popular tools for the analysis of polygenic phenotypes. In particular for cardiovascular disease, such as coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction, variance component analysis holds some unique advantages. This analysis approach is versatile, affording the user the ability to incorporate the interplay between risk factors, genetic susceptibility, the effect of environmental factors, or the joint analysis of multiple phenotypes in the analysis. In this chapter, we present as an introduction the statistical background of variance component analysis as implemented in the genetic analysis package SOLAR.