PSMIX: an R package for population structure inference via maximum likelihood method.
BACKGROUND
Inference of population stratification and individual admixture from genetic markers is an integrative part of a study in diverse situations, such as association mapping and evolutionary studies. Bayesian methods have been proposed for population stratification and admixture inference using multilocus genotypes and widely used in practice. However, these Bayesian methods demand intensive computation resources and may run into convergence problem in Markov Chain Monte Carlo based posterior samplings.


RESULTS
We have developed PSMIX, an R package based on maximum likelihood method using expectation-maximization algorithm, for inference of population stratification and individual admixture.


CONCLUSIONS
Compared with software based on Bayesian methods (e.g., STRUCTURE), PSMIX has similar accuracy, but more efficient computations.PSMIX and its supplemental documents are freely available at http://bioinformatics.med.yale.edu/PSMIX.
Wu
Baolin
B
Division of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. baolin@biostat.umn.edu
Liu
Nianjun
N
Zhao
Hongyu
H
D000465:Algorithms; D044467:American Indian or Alaska Native / Q000235:genetics; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002874:Chromosome Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005828:Genetics, Population / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008957:Models, Genetic; D012984:Software; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics