The effectiveness of using co‐dominant polymorphic allelic series for (1) checking pedigrees and (2) distinguishing full‐sib pair members

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Formulae express the effectiveness of parentage exclusion tests and differences separating full‐sib pairs by compounding genotypic information on discrete examples of co‐dominant alleles segregating at gene loci on different autosomes. Such polymorphisms occur among structural genes and polymorphic DNA sequences. Two general formulae state the theoretical effectiveness of using co‐dominant alleles for (1) testing parentage and (2) distinguishing sibs. The formula for parentage exclusion tates the probability (PE) that a given series of co‐dominant alleles of known frequency should detect a falsely recorded father (or mother). The other formula describes how genetic polymorphism can distinguished closely related individuals. It states the probability (PS) that alleles distinguish the members of full‐sib pairs, dizygotic twins and tissue chimeras. To derive the two general formulae, particular formulae were calculated for n = 2,3 and 4 co‐dominant alleles. By increasing the numbers of alleles, the formulae were seen to contain recurrent patterns which were then expressed in the two general formulae for n alleles. Some examples demonstrate applications of the two formulae in problems concerning parentage and sibship.