NordicDB: A Nordic pool and portal for genome-wide control data

Monica Leu (1) , Dr. Humphreys (1) , Ida Surakka (1) , Emil Rehnberg (1) , Juha Muilu (1) , Päivi Rosenström (1) , Peter Almgren (1) , Juha Jääskeläinen (1) , Richard Lifton (1) , Kirsten Ohm Kyvik (1) , Jaakko Kaprio (1) , Nancy L Pedersen (1) , Aarno Palotie (1) , Per Hall (1) , Henrik Grönberg (1) , Leif Groop (1) , Leena Peltonen (1) , Juni Palmgren (1) , Samuli Ripatti (1)

1 MEB - Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics

A cost efficient way to increase power in a genetic association study is to pool controls from different sources. The genotyping effort can then be directed to large case series. The Nordic Control database, NordicDB has been set up as a unique resource in the Nordic area and the data are available for authorized users via the web-portal (http://www.nordicdb.org). The current version of NordicDB pools together high-density genome-wide SNP information from approximately 5000 controls originating from Finnish, Swedish and Danish studies and shows country-specific allele frequencies for SNP markers. The genetic homogeneity of the samples was investigated using multidimensional scaling analysis and pairwise allele frequency differences between the studies. The plot of the first two multidimensional scaling components showed excellent resemblance to the geographical placement of the samples, with a clear NW-SE gradient. We advise researchers to assess the impact of population structure when incorporating NordicDB controls in association studies. This harmonized Nordic database presents a unique genome-wide resource for future genetic association studies in the Nordic countries.

Mots clés: common controls; genome-wide data; Nordic Control Database

Monica Leu, Dr. Humphreys, Ida Surakka, Emil Rehnberg, Juha Muilu, et al.. NordicDB: A Nordic pool and portal for genome-wide control data. European Journal of Human Genetics, 2010, ⟨10.1038/ejhg.2010.112⟩. ⟨hal-00560306⟩