Genealogy-based trait association with LOCATER boosts power at loci with allelic heterogeneity
Xinxin Wang, Ryan Christ, Erica Young, Chul Joo Kang, Indraniel Das, Edward A. Belter, Markku Laakso, Louis J.M. Aslett, David Steinsaltz, Nathan O. Stitziel, Ira M. Hall · 2026
Read Genealogy-based trait association with LOCATER boosts power at loci with allelic heterogeneity by Xinxin Wang, Ryan Christ, Erica Young, Chul Joo Kang, Indraniel Das, Edward A. Belter, Markku Laakso, Louis J.M. Aslett, David Steinsaltz, Nathan O. Stitziel, Ira M. Hall (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13445712.txt.
Description
Xinxin Wang and co-authors apply a family-tree method to genome-wide trait hunting, in a 2026 paper. Standard scans test one DNA marker at a time and can miss spots where several different variants in one region each nudge a trait. Their LOCATER method groups haplotypes by ancestry and combines signals across branches of the local tree.
Run on sequencing data from 6,795 Finns across 101 heart and metabolism traits, it found 351 associations at forty-seven regions. At five regions it beat single-marker tests by pooling separate variant signals, recovered known spots the standard scan missed, and flagged one new candidate. The authors also add safeguards against confounders, which family-based methods feel more strongly.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Xinxin Wang, Ryan Christ, Erica Young, Chul Joo Kang, Indraniel Das, Edward A. Belter, Markku Laakso, Louis J.M. Aslett, David Steinsaltz, Nathan O. Stitziel, Ira M. Hall |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 72 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |