Journal Article

Sensitivity of Genome-Wide-Association Signals to Phenotyping Strategy: The PROP-TAS2R38 Taste Association as a Benchmark

Nicolas Godinot, Koichi Sameshima, Edgard Morya, Johannes le Coutre, Maria C. Souza Destito, Cintia A. Cirillo, Sven Bergmann, Milena Monteiro de Souza, Ulrich K. Genick, Zoltán Kutalik, Mirko Ledda, Nathalie Martin

2011

Overview

Natural genetic variation can have a pronounced influence on human taste perception, which in turn may influence food preference and dietary choice. Genome-wide association studies represent a powerful tool to understand this influence. To help optimize the design of future genome-wide-association studies on human taste perception we have used the well-known TAS2R38-PROP association as a tool to determine the relative power and efficiency of different phenotyping and data-analysis strategies. The results show that the choice of both data collection and data processing schemes can have a very substantial impact on the power to detect genotypic variation that affects chemosensory perception. Based on these results we provide practical guidelines for the design of future GWAS studies on chemosensory phenotypes. Moreover, in addition to the TAS2R38 gene past studies have implicated a number of other genetic loci to affect taste sensitivity to PROP and the related bitter compound PTC. None of these other locations showed genome-wide significant associations in our study. To facilitate further, target-gene driven, studies on PROP taste perception we provide the genome-wide list of p-values for all SNPs genotyped in the current study.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS),Public Library of Science
• Subject: Adolescent / Adolescent; Adult; Age Distribution; Benchmarking; Body Mass Index; Female; Genome-Wide Association Study; Genotype; Humans; Linear Models; Logistic Models; Male; Middle Aged; Observer Variation; Phenotype; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide/genetics; Propylthiouracil/pharmacology; Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled/genetics; Taste/drug effects; Taste/genetics; Taste Perception/drug effects; Taste Perception/genetics; Taste Threshold/drug effects; Taste Threshold/genetics; Young Adult / Adult / Age Distribution / Amino acids / Analysis / Benchmarking / Bioinformatics / Biology / Bitter taste / Body Mass Index / Chemoreception / Chemosensory perception / Chromosomes / Data collection / Data processing / Design optimization / Diet / Female / Food / Food habits / Food preferences / Genetic diversity / Genetic research / Genome-wide association studies / Genome-Wide Association Study / Genomes / Genomics / Genotype / Haplotypes / Humans / Laboratories / Linear Models / Logistic Models / Male / Medicine / Middle Aged / Observer Variation / Perception / Phenotype / Phenotyping / Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide - genetics / Power / Power efficiency / Propylthiouracil / Propylthiouracil - pharmacology / Q / R / Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled / Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled - genetics / Research Article / Science / Sensitivity / Single-nucleotide polymorphism / Social and Behavioral Sciences / Studies / Taste / Taste - drug effects / Taste - genetics / Taste Perception / Taste Perception - drug effects / Taste Perception - genetics / Taste receptors / Taste Threshold / Taste Threshold - drug effects / Taste Threshold - genetics / Taste thresholds / Young Adult