Haplotype-sharing analysis for alcohol dependence based on quantitative traits and the Mantel statistic

Haplotype-based methods have become increasingly popular in the last decade because shared lengths in haplotypes can be used for disease localization. In this contribution, we propose a novel linkage-based haplotype-sharing approach for quantitative traits based on the class of Mantel statistics which is closely related to the weighted pair-wise correlation statistic. Because these statistics are known to be liberal, we propose a permutation test to evaluate significance. We applied the Mantel statistic to the autosomal data from the genome-wide scan of the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism with the Affymetrix Genotype 10 K array that was provided for the Genetic Analysis Workshop 14. Four regions on chromosome 4, 8, 16, and 20 showed p-values less than 0.005 with a minimum p-value of < 0.0001 on chromosome 16 (tsc0520638 at 72.8 cM). Three of these four regions located on chromosome 4, 16, and 20 have been reported previously in the Genetic Analysis Workshop 11.