Power of linkage analysis using traits generated from simulated longitudinal data of the Framingham Heart Study

The Framingham Heart Study is a very successful longitudinal research for cardiovascular diseases. The completion of a 10-cM genome scan in Framingham families provided an opportunity to evaluate linkage using longitudinal data. Several descriptive traits based on simulated longitudinal data from the Genetic Analysis Workshop 13 (GAW13) were generated, and linkage analyses were performed for these traits. We compared the power of detecting linkage for baseline and slope genes in the simulated data of GAW13 using these traits. We found that using longitudinal traits based on multiple follow-ups may not be more powerful than using cross-sectional traits for genetic linkage analysis.