Sparse Polygenic Risk Score Inference with the Spike-and-Slab LASSO
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Large-scale biobanks, with comprehensive phenotypic and genomic data across hundreds of thousands of samples, provide ample opportunities to elucidate the genetics of complex traits and diseases. Consequently, there is a growing demand for robust and scalable methods for disease risk prediction from genotype data. Performing inference in this setting is challenging due to the high-dimensionality of genomic data, especially when coupled with relatively smaller sample sizes. Popular Polygenic Risk Score (PRS) inference methods address this challenge by adopting sparse Bayesian priors or penalized regression techniques, such as the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator ( LASSO ). However, the former class of methods are not as scalable and do not produce exact sparsity, while the latter tends to over-shrink large coefficients. In this study, we present SSLPRS , a novel PRS method based on the Spike-and-Slab LASSO (SSL) prior, which offers a theoretical bridge between the two frameworks. We extend previous work to derive a coordinate-ascent inference algorithm that operates on GWAS summary statistics, which is orders-of-magnitude more efficient than corresponding individual-level-based implementations. To illustrate the statistical properties of the proposed model, we conducted experiments involving 9 simulation configurations and 9 quantitative phenotypes from the UK Biobank. Our results demonstrate that SSLPRS is competitive with state-of-the-art methods in terms of prediction accuracy and exhibits superior variable selection performance, especially in sparse genetic architectures. In simulations, this translates to upwards of 50% improvement in positive predictive value. In analysis of real phenotypes, we show that selected variants are highly enriched for meaningful genomic annotations and have better replication rates in larger meta-analyses.
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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 | 0.003 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
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".