title: A new genetic distance with application to constrained variation at microsatellite loci.
abstract: Genetic variation at microsatellite loci is supposed to be constrained within some range in allele size. In this case, the average-square distance (delta mu)2 between two diverged populations moves asymptotically around and underestimates the time since the populations had split. A distance based on the between-locus correlation in the mean repeat scores, DR, is introduced. Numerical simulations show that DR is a linear function of time if the constraints are approximated by a linear centripetal force, which might be due to mutation bias toward a definite range or be caused both by directional mutation bias toward larger allele size and by selection against the greater number of repeats.
authors.affiliation: Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. lev@vigg.ru
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Zhivotovsky
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009154:Mutation; D010802:Phylogeny; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid