GRAB

GRAB is an R package that provides a comprehensive suite of GWAS methods for biobank-scale data. For detailed instructions, see the GRAB manual page.

Version 0.1.2 (the last version before v0.2.0 and prior to June 2025) is archived in branch release/v0.1.2.

Installation

GRAB is an R package, with part of its code written in C++ for improved performance. GRAB can be installed on Linux, Windows, or macOS via CRAN, Conda, or from source code.

Install via CRAN

Install GRAB from CRAN in your R console:

install.packages("GRAB", dependencies = TRUE)

Install via Conda

Install GRAB in a new Conda environment named grab_env from the conda-forge channel:

conda create -n grab_env -c conda-forge r-grab r-skat r-dbplyr r-tidyr r-r.utils

Quick tutorial

Here is a quick tutorial for GWAS of a time-to-event trait using SPAmix.

Step 1: fit a null model

library(GRAB)
PhenoFile <- system.file("extdata", "simuPHENO.txt", package = "GRAB")
PhenoData <- data.table::fread(PhenoFile, header = TRUE)

obj.SPAmix <- GRAB.NullModel(
  survival::Surv(SurvTime, SurvEvent) ~ AGE + GENDER + PC1 + PC2,
  data = PhenoData,
  subjIDcol = "IID",
  method = "SPAmix",
  traitType = "time-to-event",
  control = list(PC_columns = "PC1,PC2")
)

Step 2: conduct score test

GenoFile <- system.file("extdata", "simuPLINK.bed", package = "GRAB")
OutputFile <- file.path(tempdir(), "Results_SPAmix.txt")

GRAB.Marker(obj.SPAmix, GenoFile = GenoFile, OutputFile = OutputFile)
data.table::fread(OutputFile)