Process / pipelineQuantitative genetics

GCTA

GCTA (Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis) is a computational toolkit for estimating heritability and genetic correlations from genome-wide genotype and phenotype data. Developed by Yang and Visscher in 2011, GCTA uses genome-wide restricted maximum likelihood (GREML) to partition phenotypic variance into components explained by common SNPs, environmental factors, and residual variation. GCTA has become a standard tool for understanding the proportion of trait variation attributable to genetics across complex diseases and quantitative traits.

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Sources

  1. Yang, J., Lee, S. H., Goddard, M. E., & Visscher, P. M. (2011). GCTA: A tool for genome-wide complex trait analysis. American Journal of Human Genetics, 88(1), 76–82. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.11.011
  2. Zhou, X., Stephens, M. (2012). Genome-wide efficient mixed-model analysis for association studies. Nature Genetics, 44(7), 821–824. DOI: 10.1038/ng.2310
  3. Pitchford, W. S., & Brown, W. M. (2019). Genomic prediction and selection of genomic variance. Genetics Selection Evolution, 51(1), 53–66. link

Related methods

ScholarGateGCTA (Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis for Heritability Estimation). Retrieved 2026-06-04 from https://scholargate.app/en/genetics/gcta