a note on the rationale for estimating genealogical coancestry from molecular markers注意的理由估计系谱coancestry从分子标记.pdfVIP

Toro et al. Genetics Selection Evolution 2011, 43:27 Ge n e t i c s /content/43/1/27 Se l e c t i o n Evolution RESEARCH Open Access A note on the rationale for estimating genealogical coancestry from molecular markers 1 2 3* Miguel Ángel Toro , Luis Alberto García-Cortés and Andrés Legarra Abstract Background: Genetic relatedness or similarity between individuals is a key concept in population, quantitative and conservation genetics. When the pedigree of a population is available and assuming a founder population from which the genealogical records start, genetic relatedness between individuals can be estimated by the coancestry coefficient. If pedigree data is lacking or incomplete, estimation of the genetic similarity between individuals relies on molecular markers, using either molecular coancestry or molecular covariance. Some relationships between genealogical and molecular coancestries and covariances have already been described in the literature. Methods: We show how the expected values of the empirical measures of similarity based on molecular marker data are functions of the genealogical coancestry. From these formulas, it is easy to derive estimators of genealogical coancestry from molecular data. We include variation of allelic frequencies in the estimators. Results: The estimators are illustrated with simulated examples and with a real dataset from dairy cattle. In general, estimators are accurate and only slightly biased. From the r