H3AGWAS: a portable workflow for genome wide association studies

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are crucial for identifying genetic variants linked to specific traits.
• Performing GWAS involves complex computations on large datasets, often requiring repetitive analysis with varied parameters.
• Manual execution of GWAS is time-consuming, prone to errors, and hinders reproducibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the H3AGWAS workflow, a robust solution for automating and standardizing GWAS.
• To provide a scalable and portable platform for complex genetic association analyses.

Main Methods:

• The H3AGWAS workflow integrates pre-association analysis, diverse association testing methods, and post-association analysis.
• The workflow is designed for scalability across different computational environments, from laptops to high-performance clusters and cloud platforms.
• All necessary software components are containerized using Docker or Singularity for consistent execution.

Main Results:

• The H3AGWAS workflow offers a powerful and scalable solution for conducting genome-wide association studies.
• It automates key stages of GWAS, including data preparation, association testing, and result interpretation.
• The workflow ensures portability and reproducibility of complex genetic analyses.

Conclusions:

• The H3AGWAS workflow significantly improves the efficiency and reliability of genome-wide association studies.
• Its scalability across diverse computing infrastructures (laptop, cluster, cloud) and containerization ensure broad applicability.
• This tool facilitates reproducible genetic research and accelerates the discovery of genotype-phenotype relationships.