MCPerm: A Monte Carlo Permutation Method for Accurately Correcting the Multiple Testing in a Meta-Analysis of Genetic Association Studies

Traditional permutation (TradPerm) tests are usually considered the gold standard for multiple testing corrections. However, they can be difficult to complete for the meta-analyses of genetic association studies based on multiple single nucleotide polymorphism loci as they depend on individual-level genotype and phenotype data to perform random shuffles, which are not easy to obtain. Most meta-analyses have therefore been performed using summary statistics from previously published studies. To carry out a permutation using only genotype counts without changing the size of the TradPerm P-value, we developed a Monte Carlo permutation (MCPerm) method. First, for each study included in the meta-analysis, we used a two-step hypergeometric distribution to generate a random number of genotypes in cases and controls. We then carried out a meta-analysis using these random genotype data. Finally, we obtained the corrected permutation P-value of the meta-analysis by repeating the entire process N times. We used five real datasets and five simulation datasets to evaluate the MCPerm method and our results showed the following: (1) MCPerm requires only the summary statistics of the genotype, without the need for individual-level data; (2) Genotype counts generated by our two-step hypergeometric distributions had the same distributions as genotype counts generated by shuffling; (3) MCPerm had almost exactly the same permutation P-values as TradPerm (r = 0.999; P<2.2e-16); (4) The calculation speed of MCPerm is much faster than that of TradPerm. In summary, MCPerm appears to be a viable alternative to TradPerm, and we have developed it as a freely available R package at CRAN: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/MCPerm/index.html.