Fast Estimation of Genetic Correlation for Biobank-Scale Data

摘要

Genetic correlation, i.e., the proportion of phenotypic correlation across a pair of traits that can be explained by genetic variation, is an important parameter in efforts to understand the relationships among complex traits [1]. The observation of substantial genetic correlation across a pair of traits, can provide insights into shared genetic pathways as well as providing a starting point to investigate causal relationships. Attempts to estimate genetic correlations among complex phenotypes attributable to genome-wide SNP variation data have motivated the analysis of large datasets as well as the development of sophisticated methods.