A pairwise relatedness estimator for polyploids.
Studies in genetics and ecology often require estimates of relatedness coefficients based on genetic marker data. Many diploid estimators have been developed using either method-of-moments or maximum-likelihood estimates. However, there are no relatedness estimators for polyploids. The development of a moment estimator for polyploids with polysomic inheritance, which simultaneously incorporates the two-gene relatedness coefficient and various 'higher-order' coefficients, is described here. The performance of the estimator is compared to other estimators under a variety of conditions. When using a small number of loci, the estimator is biased because of an increase in ill-conditioned matrices. However, the estimator becomes asymptotically unbiased with large numbers of loci. The ambiguity of polyploid heterozygotes (when balanced heterozygotes cannot be distinguished from unbalanced heterozygotes) is also considered; as with low numbers of loci, genotype ambiguity leads to bias. A software, PolyRelatedness, implementing this method and supporting a maximum ploidy of 8 is provided.
Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China of Ministry of Education, and College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi'an, ShaanXi, 710069, China.
Kang
K
Huang
Kermit
K
Ritland
Songtao
S
Guo
Milena
M
Shattuck
Baoguo
B
Li
D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D005819:Genetic Markers; D014644:Genetic Variation; D011123:Polyploidy; D012984:Software
D005819:Genetic Markers
genotype ambiguity; method-of-moments; polyploids; relatedness coefficient