Detecting population stratification using related individuals

BMC Proc. 2009 Dec 15;3 Suppl 7(Suppl 7):S106. doi: 10.1186/1753-6561-3-s7-s106.

Abstract

Although identification of cryptic population stratification is necessary for case/control association analyses, it is also vital for linkage analyses and family-based association tests when founder genotypes are missing. However, including related individuals in an analysis such as EIGENSTRAT can result in bias; using only founders or one individual per pedigree results in loss of data and inaccurate estimates of stratification. We examine a generalization of principal-component analyses to allow for the inclusion of related individuals by down-weighting the significance of individual comparisons.