Joint linkage of multiple loci for a complex disorder.

Many investigators who have been searching for linkage to complex diseases have by now accumulated a drawer full of negative results. If disease is actually caused by genes at several loci, these data might contain multiple-locus system (MLS) information that the investigator does not realize. Trying to obtain this information formally, through the MLS likelihood, leads to severe computational and statistical difficulties. Therefore, we propose a scheme of inference based on single-locus (SL) statistics, considered jointly. By simulation, we find that the MLS lod score is closely approximated by the sum of SL lod scores. However, we also find that for moderately large systems, say three of four loci, both MLS and SL lod scores are likely to be inconclusive. Nonetheless, MLS can often be detected through the correlation of individual pedigree SL lod scores. Significant correlation is itself evidence of an MLS, because, in the absence of linkage, false-positive lod scores are necessarily random. Under epistasis SL lod scores tend to be positively correlated among pedigrees, while under independent action SL lod scores from high-density samples tend to be negatively correlated.