title: Allele frequencies in multigene families. I. Diffusion equation approach.
abstract: Simulation studies by Ohta, and theoretical studies by Shimizu, indicated that the alleles in one chromosome multigene family follow Ewens' sampling distribution at stationarity. The reasons for this are explored, and the theory is extended to obtain transient and stationary results for the sampling distribution. Expressions are obtained for the amount of variation of numbers of alleles across the chromosomes in a population. The population model includes mutation, and gene conversion, but not recombination.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Watterson
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D005785:Gene Conversion; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D008957:Models, Genetic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009154:Mutation; D011336:Probability