Single marker association analysis for unrelated samples

Abstract

Methods for single marker association analysis are presented for binary and quantitative traits. For a binary trait, we focus on the analysis of retrospective case-control data using Pearson's chi-squared test, the trend test, and a robust test. For a continuous trait, typical methods are based on a linear regression model or the analysis of variance. We illustrate how these tests can be applied using a public available R package "Rassoc" and some existing R functions. Guidelines for choosing these test statistics are provided. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.