MCKAT: a multi-dimensional copy number variant kernel association test

Copy number variants (CNVs) are the gain or loss of DNA segments in the genome. Studies have shown that CNVs are linked to various disorders, including autism, intellectual disability, and schizophrenia. Consequently, the interest in studying a possible association of CNVs to specific disease traits is growing. However, due to the specific multi-dimensional characteristics of the CNVs, methods for testing the association between CNVs and the disease-related traits are still underdeveloped. We propose a novel multi-dimensional CNV kernel association test (MCKAT) in this paper. We aim to find significant associations between CNVs and disease-related traits using kernel-based methods.

We address the multi-dimensionality in CNV characteristics. We first design a single pair CNV kernel, which contains three sub-kernels to summarize the similarity between two CNVs considering all CNV characteristics. Then, aggregate single pair CNV kernel to the whole chromosome CNV kernel, which summarizes the similarity between CNVs in two or more chromosomes. Finally, the association between the CNVs and disease-related traits is evaluated by comparing the similarity in the trait with kernel-based similarity using a score test in a random effect model. We apply MCKAT on genome-wide CNV datasets to examine the association between CNVs and disease-related traits, which demonstrates the potential usefulness the proposed method has for the CNV association tests. We compare the performance of MCKAT with CKAT, a uni-dimensional kernel method. Based on the results, MCKAT indicates stronger evidence, smaller p-value, in detecting significant associations between CNVs and disease-related traits in both rare and common CNV datasets.

A multi-dimensional copy number variant kernel association test can detect statistically significant associated CNV regions with any disease-related trait. MCKAT can provide biologists with CNV hot spots at the cytogenetic band level that CNVs on them may have a significant association with disease-related traits. Using MCKAT, biologists can narrow their investigation from the whole genome, including many genes and CNVs, to more specific cytogenetic bands that MCKAT identifies. Furthermore, MCKAT can help biologists detect significantly associated CNVs with disease-related traits across a patient group instead of examining each subject's CNVs case by case.