GEGEINTOOL: A Computer-Based Tool for Automated Analysis of
Gene-Gene Interactions in Large Epidemiological Studies in
Cardiovascular Genomics
Oscar Coltell, José M. Ordovás, Carmen Saiz, Manuel Forner, Francisco Gabriel, Dolores Corella
Current methods of data analysis of gene-gene
interactions in complex diseases, after taking into account
environmental factors using traditional approaches, are
inefficient. High-throughput methods of analysis in large
scale studies including thousands of subjects and
hundreds of SNPs should be implemented. We developed
an integrative computer tool, GEGEINTOOL (GEne-
GEne INTeraction tOOL), for large-scale analysis of
gene-gene interactions, in human studies of complex
diseases including a large number of subjects, SNPs, as
well as environmental factors. That resource uses
standard statistical packages (SPSS, etc.) to build and fit
the gene-gene interaction models by means of syntax
scripts in predicting one or more continuous or
dichotomic phenotypes. Codominant, dominant and
recessive genetic interaction models including control for
covariates are automatically created for each SNP in
order to test the best model. From the standard outputs,
GEGEINTOOL extracts a selected set of parameters
(regression coefficients, p-values, adjusted means, etc.),
and groups them in a single MS Excel Spreadsheet. The
tool allows editing the set of filter parameters, filtering
the selected results depending on p-values, as well as
plotting the selected gene-gene interactions to check
consistency. In conclusion, GEGEINTOOL is a useful
and friendly tool for exploring and identifying gene-gene
interactions in complex diseases. Full Text
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