Methodology article
A quantitative genetic and epigenetic model of complex traits
1 Siyang Science and Technology Station, Yuanpeng Institute of Genome, Nantong, Jiangsu, 226019, China
2 Department of Public Health Sciences, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA
3 Division of Biostatistics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06510, USA
4 Center for Computational Biology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China
BMC Bioinformatics 2012, 13:274 doi:10.1186/1471-2105-13-274
Published: 26 October 2012Abstract
Background
Despite our increasing recognition of the mechanisms that specify and propagate epigenetic states of gene expression, the pattern of how epigenetic modifications contribute to the overall genetic variation of a phenotypic trait remains largely elusive.
Results
We construct a quantitative model to explore the effect of epigenetic modifications that occur at specific rates on the genome. This model, derived from, but beyond, the traditional quantitative genetic theory that is founded on Mendel’s laws, allows questions concerning the prevalence and importance of epigenetic variation to be incorporated and addressed.
Conclusions
It provides a new avenue for bringing chromatin inheritance into the realm of complex traits, facilitating our understanding of the means by which phenotypic variation is generated.
