METHODOLOGY Identifying g

available at the end of the article association studies (GWASs) can help in understanding the genetic basis of complex biological mechanisms that underlie such diseases and can help in risk assessment, BioData Mining Floudas et al. BioData Mining (2014) 7:35 DOI 10.1186/s13040-014-0035-zThe commonest type of genetic variation is the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) that results when a single nucleotide is replaced by another in the genomediagnosis, prognosis and development of new therapies. During the past several decades genetic linkage studies have been effective in mapping genetic loci respon-sible for many Mendelian diseases that are caused by a single genetic variant [1]. More recently, genetic studies have indicated that most common diseases are likely to be polygenic where multiple genetic variants acting singly and in combination underlie the expression of disease [2].diseases. The large number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in GWASs however makes the identification of genetic interactions computationally challenging. We developed the Bayesian Combinatorial Method (BCM) that can identify pairs of SNPs that in combination have high statistical association with disease