title: On mixtures of three normal populations caused by monogenic inheritance: application to desipramine metabolism.
abstract: For a mixture of three normal distributions, which represent genotypes AA, Aa and aa, a method of estimation of the seven unknown parameters is proposed which works well whenever the phenotype (aa) is sufficiently well separated from the phenotype (AA, Aa). It is based on p-values of Kolmogorov's test of goodness of fit to normality. Initial parameter values for this iterative algorithm can be found by visual check and/or by using the EM algorithm. In an example of a data set of size 59 from a study of the metabolic rate of desipramine, the usefulness of this method is demonstrated. Extensions to more complex situations are feasible and are indicated at the end.
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Chicago.
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Miescke
authors.forename: M N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Musa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000378:metabolism*; D003891:Desipramine / Q000097:blood / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D006900:Hydroxylation; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010641:Phenotype; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
chemical_list: D003891:Desipramine