AUTHOR=Li Ting , Ning Zheng , Shen Xia 

TITLE=Improved Estimation of Phenotypic Correlations Using Summary Association Statistics

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2021.665252

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2021.665252

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=Estimating the phenotypic correlations between complex traits and diseases based on their genome-wide association summary statistics has been a useful technique in genetic epidemiology and statistical genetics inference. Two state-of-the-art strategies, Z-score correlation across null-effect SNPs and LD score regression intercept, were widely applied to estimate phenotypic correlations. Here, we propose an improved Z-score correlation strategy based on SNPs with low minor allele frequencies (MAFs), and show how this simple strategy can correct the bias generated by the current methods. The low-MAF estimator improves phenotypic correlation estimation thus is beneficial for methods and applications using phenotypic correlations inferred from summary association statistics.