HAPSIMU: a genetic simulation platform for population-based association studies

BACKGROUND: Population structure is an important cause leading to inconsistent results in population-based association studies (PBAS) of human diseases. Various statistical methods have been proposed to reduce the negative impact of population structure on PBAS. Due to lack of structural information in real populations, it is difficult to evaluate the impact of population structure on PBAS in real populations. RESULTS: We developed a genetic simulation platform, HAPSIMU, based on real haplotype data from the HapMap ENCODE project. This platform can simulate heterogeneous populations with various known and controllable structures under the continuous migration model or the discrete model. Moreover, both qualitative and quantitative traits can be simulated using additive genetic model with various genetic parameters designated by users. CONCLUSION: HAPSIMU provides a common genetic simulation platform to evaluate the impact of population structure on PBAS, and compare the relative performance of various population structure identification and PBAS methods.