Integrated probability of coronary heart disease subject to the -308 tumor necrosis factor-alpha SNP: a Bayesian meta-analysis

TL;DR

This study uses Bayesian meta-analysis to assess the link between a specific genetic variation and coronary heart disease, finding no significant association across populations.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian approach to integrate multiple studies and evaluate the genetic association with CHD, providing robust statistical evidence.

Findings

Bayesian analysis shows no significant link between the SNP and CHD.

The probability of CHD given the SNP is not increased.

No population-specific association found.

Abstract

We present a meta-analysis of independent studies on the potential implication in the occurrence of coronary heart disease (CHD) of the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) at the -308 position of the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) gene. We use Bayesian analysis to integrate independent data sets and to infer statistically robust measurements of correlation. Bayesian hypothesis testing indicates that there is no preference for the hypothesis that the -308 TNF-alpha SNP is related to the occurrence of CHD, in the Caucasian or in the Asian population, over the null hypothesis. As a measure of correlation, we use the probability of occurrence of CHD conditional on the presence of the SNP, derived as the posterior probability of the Bayesian meta-analysis. The conditional probability indicates that CHD is not more likely to occur when the SNP is present, which suggests that the -308 TNF-alpha SNP is not implicated in the occurrence of CHD.