An evaluation of genetic distances for use with microsatellite loci

Journal Article · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1995 · Genetics

OSTI ID:255348

Goldstein, D B; Feldman, M W; Cavalli-Sforza, L L ^[1]

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1. Stanford Univ., CA (United States)

Mutations of alleles at microsatellite loci tend to result in alleles with repeat scores similar to those of the alleles from which they were derived. Therefore the difference in repeat score between alleles carries information about the amount of time that has passed since they shared a common ancestral allele. This information is ignored by genetic distances based on the infinite alleles model. Here we develop a genetic distance based on the stepwise mutation model that includes allelic repeat score. We adapt earlier treatments of the stepwise mutation model to show, analytically that the expectation of this distance is a linear function of time. We then use computer simulations to evaluate the overall reliability of this distance and to compare it with allele sharing and Nei`s distance. We find that no distance is uniformly superior for all purposes, but that for phylogenetic reconstruction of taxa that are sufficiently diverged our new distance is preferable. 31 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab.

• OSTI ID: 255348
• Journal Information: Genetics, Journal Name: Genetics Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 139; ISSN GENTAE; ISSN 0016-6731
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

55 BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE
BASIC STUDIES
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION
BIOLOGICAL MARKERS
BIOLOGICAL MODELS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
GENE MUTATIONS
GENES
GENETIC MAPPING
STATISTICAL MODELS