A penalized linear mixed model for genomic prediction using pedigree structures

Can Yang, Cong Li, Mengjie Chen, Xiaowei Chen, Lin Hou, Hongyu Zhao

Genetic Analysis Workshop 18 provided a platform for evaluating genomic prediction power based on single-nucleotide polymorphisms from single-nucleotide polymorphism array data and sequencing data. Also, Genetic Analysis Workshop 18 provided a diverse pedigree structure to be explored in prediction. In this study, we attempted to combine pedigree information with single-nucleotide polymorphism data to predict systolic blood pressure. Our results suggested that the prediction power based on pedigree information only could be unsatisfactory. Using additional information such as single-nucleotide polymorphism genotypes would improve prediction accuracy. In particular, the improvement can be significant when there exist a few single-nucleotide polymorphisms with relatively larger effect sizes. We also compared the prediction performance based on genome-wide association study data (ie, common variants) and sequencing data (ie, common variants plus low-frequency variants). The experimental result showed that inclusion of low frequency variants could not lead to improvement of prediction accuracy.