Scan statistics in human gene mapping

摘要

In a recent article1 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the authors reported the use of scan statistics for identifying a cluster of variants associated with autism. We applaud the authors for their careful work but would like to point out that scan statistics as a mapping tool are not new in human genetics.Although scan statistics have been known since the 1960s 0oseph Naus, "father of the scan statistic"2), the first idea for their use in human genetics was based on the observation that true peaks in linkage scans tend to be wider than false peaks. It was this idea that prompted us to introduce scan statistics into human gene mapping.