deMeta

deMeta removes specified sub-studies from consortium meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies to correct for overlapping-sample confounding using summary statistics.

Key Features:

• Sub-study removal: Removes the contribution of a specified sub-study from an existing meta-analysis using summary statistics.
• Minimal data requirements: Operates using only the summary statistics from the overall meta-analysis and the sub-study to be removed.
• Computational efficiency: Performs adjustments with low computational resource requirements.
• Visualization: Generates contrasting Manhattan and quantile-quantile (QQ) plots to assess the impact of removing a sub-study.

Scientific Applications:

• Overlap correction in GWAS meta-analyses: Corrects for overlapping samples between studies to reduce bias in genome-wide association meta-analyses.
• Refinement of meta-analytic conclusions: Produces adjusted meta-analysis results to support more reliable downstream analyses and interpretations free from sample-overlap confounding.

Methodology:

Performs a statistical adjustment that systematically removes a sub-study's contribution from the overall meta-analysis using the sub-study and meta-analysis summary statistics, avoiding re-running GWAS or meta-analyses.