Entropy-based selection for maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility with application to preterm prelabor rupture of membranes

BACKGROUND: Maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility (MFGI) is increasingly reported to influence human diseases, especially pregnancy-related complications. In practice, it is challenging to identify the ideal incompatibility model for analysis, since the true MFGI mechanism is generally unknown. The underlying MFGI mechanism for different genetic variants can vary, and to use a single incompatibility model for all circumstances would cause power loss in testing MFGI. RESULTS: In this article, we propose a practical 2-step procedure that incorporates a model selection strategy based on an entropy measurement to select the most appropriate MFGI model represented by data and test the significance of the MFGI effect using the chosen model within the generalized linear regression framework. CONCLUSIONS: Our simulation studies show that the proposed two-step procedure controls the type I error rate and increase the testing power under various scenarios. In a real data application, our analysis reveals genes having an MFGI effect, which may not be detected with a non-model selection counterpart.