Marker selection for genetic case–control association studies

Association studies can focus on candidate gene(s), a particular genomic region, or adopt a genome-wide association approach, each of which has implications for marker selection. The strategy for marker selection will affect the statistical power of the study to detect a disease association and is a crucial element of study design. The abundant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are the markers of choice in genetic case--control association studies. The genotypes of neighboring SNPs are often highly correlated ('in linkage disequilibrium', LD) within a population, which is utilized for selecting specific 'tagSNPs' to serve as proxies for other nearby SNPs in high LD. General guidelines for SNP selection in candidate genes/regions and genome-wide studies are provided in this protocol, along with illustrative examples. Publicly available web-based resources are utilized to browse and retrieve data, and software, such as Haploview and Goldsurfer2, is applied to investigate LD and to select tagSNPs.