Gjessing Håkon K, Lie Rolv Terje
Divison of Epidemiology, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Norway.
Stat Methods Med Res. 2008 Feb;17(1):75-96. doi: 10.1177/0962280207081241. Epub 2007 Sep 13.
The field of traditional biometrical genetics uses mixed-effects models to quantify the influence of genetic and environmental factors on a biological trait, based essentially on estimating within-family trait correlations. Such analyses provide a useful preview of what may be discovered with the emerging full-scale genotyping strategies. However, biometrical analyses require unrealistically large sample sizes to obtain a reasonable precision, particularly for dichotomous traits. In addition, it may be very difficult to separate genetic and environmental effects because environmental correlations are poorly understood. We illustrate these and other difficulties using population-based cousins and nuclear family data for birth weight, collected from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway.
传统生物统计学遗传学领域使用混合效应模型来量化遗传和环境因素对生物性状的影响，主要是基于估计家庭内部性状的相关性。这类分析为新兴的全基因组分型策略可能发现的结果提供了有用的预观。然而，生物统计学分析需要不切实际的大样本量才能获得合理的精度，尤其是对于二分性状。此外，由于对环境相关性了解甚少，可能很难区分遗传效应和环境效应。我们利用从挪威医疗出生登记处收集的基于人群的堂兄弟姐妹和核心家庭出生体重数据来说明这些及其他困难。
