A Genetic Programming Model for Association Studies to Detect Epistasis in Low Heritability Data

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22456/2175-2745.79333

Keywords:

Bioinformatics, GWAS, SNP, Genetic Programming, Random Forest, Computational Modeling, Mathematical Modeling

Abstract

The genome-wide associations studies (GWAS) aims to identify the most influential markers in relation to the phenotype values. One of the substantial challenges is to find a non-linear mapping between genotype and phenotype, also known as epistasis, that usually becomes the process of searching and identifying functional SNPs more complex. Some diseases such as cervical cancer, leukemia and type 2 diabetes have low heritability. The heritability of the sample is directly related to the explanation defined by the genotype, so the lower the heritability the greater the influence of the environmental factors and the less the genotypic explanation. In this work, an algorithm capable of identifying epistatic associations at different levels of heritability is proposed. The developing model is a aplication of genetic programming with a specialized initialization for the initial population consisting of a random forest strategy. The initialization process aims to rank the most important SNPs increasing the probability of their insertion in the initial population of the genetic programming model. The expected behavior of the presented model for the obtainment of the causal markers intends to be robust in relation to the heritability level. The simulated experiments are case-control type with heritability level of 0.4, 0.3, 0.2 and 0.1 considering scenarios with 100 and 1000 markers. Our approach was compared with the GPAS software and a genetic programming algorithm without the initialization step. The results show that the use of an efficient population initialization method based on ranking strategy is very promising compared to other models.

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Author Biographies

Igor Magalhães Ribeiro, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF)

Doutorando em Modelagem Computacional pela Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF). Mestre em Modelagem Computacional pelo Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica (LNCC). Bacharel em Sistemas de Informação pelo Centro de Ensino Superior de Juiz de Fora.

Carlos Cristiano Hasenclever Borges, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF)

Graduado em Engenharia Civil pela Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (1990), mestre em Engenharia Civil pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - COPPE/UFRJ (1993) e doutor em Engenharia Civil pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (1999) .- COPPE/UFRJ. Trabalhou no Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica até pedir vacância do cargo em 2009. Atualmente trabalha na Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora no Departamento de Ciência da Computação. Tem experiência na área de Modelagem Computacional, com atuação em Análise Numérica, Aprendizagem de Máquina e Inteligência Computacional com aplicações em problemas de Engenharia Estrutural e Biologia Computacional.

Bruno Zonovelli Silva, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF)

Mestre em Modelagem computacional pela Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF), com ênfase em aprendizado de máquina aplicado a problemas de bioinformática. Atualmente aluno de doutorado do programa de pós-graduação em modelagem computacional da UFJF, pesquisando redes neurais, lógica fuzzy e técnicas de aprendizado de máquina. Possui experiência com programação WEB, rede de computadores, banco de dados, engenharia de software e padrões de projeto.

Wagner Arbex, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF) e Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa)

Wagner Arbex possui graduação em Bacharelado em Matemática (Modalidade Informática) pela Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, mestrado em Sistemas e Computação pelo Instituto Militar de Engenharia e doutorado em Engenharia de Sistemas e Computação pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Atualmente é conselheiro da Associação Brasileira de Bioinformática e Biologia Computacional, professor adjunto da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora e analista científico da Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária. Tem experiência na área de Ciência da Computação, com ênfase em Bioinformática, atuando principalmente nos seguintes temas: bioinformática, polimorfismo de base única (single nucleotide polymorphism), melhoramento genético animal, inferência difusa (fuzzy inference), modelagem computacional e aprendizado de máquina.

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Published

2018-07-17

How to Cite

Ribeiro, I. M., Borges, C. C. H., Silva, B. Z., & Arbex, W. (2018). A Genetic Programming Model for Association Studies to Detect Epistasis in Low Heritability Data. Revista De Informática Teórica E Aplicada, 25(2), 85–92. https://doi.org/10.22456/2175-2745.79333

Issue

Section

Special Issue - Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

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