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Estimating Ld Blocks

I'm trying to get a handle on how LD patterns define blocks which are often interpreted as haplotype boundaries. I have LD data (D', r^2) and would like to come up with or use an existing function which takes this matrix and can generate row IDs for the boundaries of each "block".

Is there a BioConductor package or other tool which does this, or a paper which describes a simple approach I could try? The matrix looks "block-diagonal" so I imagine even a technique from linear algebra might have a simple procedure, e.g. this Matlab function (which I don't have access to)?

linkage haplotype

4 answers

If you are can think out of R, you can try using PLINK (See section on LD calculations) or Haploview (See Haploview tutorial here) for estimation / visualization of LD blocks. I would like to recommend PLINK, it can be easily integrated in to your work-flows, but Haploview is more of a GUI based. If you are too specific on R, there is an R plug-in for PLINK too.

Thanks for the [p]link - I was hoping for something that I could use with the LD matrix and wouldn't require the raw genotypes

LDheatmap (although on CRAN, not on Bioconductor) will help with making a visualization of your LD data. The function retuns (invisibly) an object with details for the plot that you could use.

For dealing with almost-block matrices, the packges limSolve might have utilities.

We do a lot of this in our group and I mean a lot. Our choices are HelixTree (GoldenHelix) and TAGGER/Haploview (Haploview employs TAGGER). I have heard a lot of talk about PLINK. Our collaborators with the GOLDN study use it. We find HelixTree to be more robust.

Can you please give a few lines of sample data on how your LD data looks like? My guess is that if only the r^2 values are given, Assuming you have SNP markers and LD measures between them, are you trying to segment the LD blocks based on the data?

Hi jvijai. Deleting because this is not an answer. If you wish to make comments to a question, please use the 'add comment' link below the question (or below an answer) rather than by writing an answer. Cheers.

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