Genetic Analysis Workshop 18 single-nucleotide variant prioritization based on protein impact, sequence conservation, and gene annotation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Grouping variants based on gene mapping can augment the power of rare variant association tests. Weighting or sorting variants based on their expected functional impact can provide additional benefit. We defined groups of prioritized variants based on systematic annotation of Genetic Analysis Workshop 18 (GAW18) single-nucleotide variants; we focused on variants detected by whole genome sequencing, specifically on the high-quality subset presented in the genotype files. First, we divided variants between coding and noncoding. Coding variants are fewer than 1% of the total and are more likely to have a biological effect than noncoding variants. Coding variants were further stratified into protein changing and protein damaging groups based on the effect on protein amino acid sequence. In particular, missense variants predicted to be damaging, splice-site alterations, and stop gains were assigned to the protein damaging category. Impact of noncoding variants is more difficult to predict. We decided to rely uniquely on conservation: we combined (a) the mammalian phastCons Conserved Element and (b) the PhyloP score, which identify conserved intervals and the single-nucleotide position, respectively. This reduced the noncoding variants to a number comparable to coding variants. Finally, using gene structure definition from the widely used RefSeq database, we mapped variants to genes to support association tests that require collapsing rare variants to genes. Companion GAW18 papers used these variant priority groups and gene mapping; one of these paper specifically found evidence of stronger association signal for protein damaging variants.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.026 | 0.010 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".