Developing new statisical methods to detect rare variants involved in neuropsychiatric disorders

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We developed one analytical tool and published our results in peer-reviewed journals. We developed a haplotype-based approach(H-PDT) to analyze rare variants within pedigrees with complex human disorders. Extensive simulations in the sequencing setting were carried out to evaluate and compare the haplotype-based approach with the rare variant methods that drew on a more conventional collapsing strategy. As assessed through a variety of scenarios, the haplotype-based pedigree tests had enhanced statistical power compared with the rare variants based pedigree tests when the disease of interest was mainly caused by rare haplotypes (with multiple rare alleles), and vice versa when disease was caused by rare variants acting independently. For most of other situations when disease was caused both by haplotypes with multiple rare alleles and by rare variants with similar effects, these two approaches provided similar power in testing for association. All tests have been implemented in a software, which was submitted to the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) for general use as a computer program named rvHPDT.