BiForce Toolbox

BiForce Toolbox performs high-throughput pairwise epistasis analysis in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to detect SNP–SNP interactions underlying quantitative and disease traits.

Key Features:

• Bitwise computing and multithreaded parallelization: Uses bitwise operations combined with multithreaded processing to accelerate computation of full pairwise genome scans across large GWAS datasets.
• Full pairwise epistasis scans: Performs exhaustive pairwise SNP–SNP interaction testing for both quantitative and disease traits.
• Scalability: Designed to process billions of SNP combinations for high-throughput epistasis analysis.
• Marginal-effect-focused tests: Incorporates additional interaction tests for SNPs with significant marginal effects to increase detection power.

Scientific Applications:

• Epistasis discovery in GWAS: Detects pairwise genetic interactions that contribute to complex trait architecture in large-scale GWAS.
• Identification of disease-associated interactions: Identifies SNP–SNP interaction signals and pathways that may contribute to disease susceptibility.
• Quantitative trait analysis: Maps interactions influencing variation in quantitative phenotypes.

Methodology:

Performs exhaustive full pairwise genome scans using bitwise operations and multithreaded parallelization and applies additional interaction tests for SNPs with significant marginal effects.