Matt Weiser, a graduate student in Terry’s lab, is first author on the paper, entitled “Novel Distal eQTL Analysis Demonstrates Effect of Population Genetic Architecture on Detecting and Interpreting Associations.”
Standard eQTL mapping methods carry significant multiple testing burdens, limiting their ability to detect eQTL distal to the affected gene. The article describes a novel eQTL testing approach based on the pairwise conditional dependencies between genes’ expression levels. They apply the method to data from yeast, mouse, and human, and identify thousands of novel eQTL. Genes implicated as distal eQTL were enriched for metabolism and biosynthesis annotations, suggesting they participate in feedback mechanisms.