Predicting Gene Regulatory Interactions Using Natural Genetic Variation

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are a powerful tool to elucidate the genotype–phenotype map. Although GWAS are usually used to assess simple univariate associations between genetic markers and traits of interest, it is also possible to infer the underlying genetic architecture and to predict gene regulatory interactions. In this chapter, we describe the latest methods and tools to perform GWAS by calculating permutation-based significance thresholds. For this purpose, we first provide guidelines on univariate GWAS analyses that are extended in the second part of this chapter to more complex models that enable the inference of gene regulatory networks and how these networks vary.