title: Probability distribution of haplotype frequencies under the two-locus Wright-Fisher model by diffusion approximation.
abstract: The probability distribution of haplotype frequencies in a population, and the way it is influenced by genetical forces such as recombination, selection, random drift ...is a question of fundamental interest in population genetics. For large populations, the distribution of haplotype frequencies for two linked loci under the classical Wright-Fisher model is almost impossible to compute because of numerical reasons. However the Wright-Fisher process can in such cases be approximated by a diffusion process and the transition density can then be deduced from the Kolmogorov equations. As no exact solution has been found for these equations, we developed a numerical method based on finite differences to solve them. It applies to transient states and models including selection or mutations. We show by several tests that this method is accurate for computing the conditional joint density of haplotype frequencies given that no haplotype has been lost. We also prove that it is far less time consuming than other methods such as Monte Carlo simulations.
authors.affiliation: Unité de Biométrie et Intelligence Artificielle, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, BP52627, 31326 Castanet-Tolosan Cedex, France. simon.boitard@toulouse.inra.fr <simon.boitard@toulouse.inra.fr>
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Boitard
authors.forename: Patrice
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Loisel
mesh_terms: D005787:Gene Frequency; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006239:Haplotypes; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium; D008390:Markov Chains; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009010:Monte Carlo Method