Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 17, 2026

Candidate Gene Testing in Clinical Cohort Studies with Multiplexed Genotyping and Mass Spectrometry
Published on: June 21, 2018
A simulated SNP experiment indicates a high risk of over-fitting and false positive results when a predictive
1Department of Experimental Clinical Oncology, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark.
Abstract:
Several relatively small studies have established predictive models for normal tissue radiosensitivity based on multiple SNPs. Even though these models yielded statistically significant results, the models were often inconsistent with each other. This can presumably be attributed to certain methodological problems related to the way these models were established and tested. In order to explore this potential problem, we conducted 10 simulated SNP experiments based on randomly assigned 'SNP genotypes' applied to a set of real clinical data. In 8 out of 10 times, a significant result was found for the model. This clearly demonstrates that the process of fitting the model to the dataset is indeed per se capable of producing nominally significant results. Thus, great caution should be taken when a multiple SNP model is established and tested within the same patient cohort.
Related Concept Videos
Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms-SNPs
Comparing Copy Number Variations and SNPs
Copy number variations or CNVs are the structural variations that cover more than 1kb of DNA sequence. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), on the other hand, is a single nucleotide change or a point mutation that is found in more than 1%...
Genome-wide Association Studies-GWAS
GWAS does not require the identification of the target gene involved in...
Survival Tree
Building a Survival Tree
Constructing a...

