ROBUST METHOD FOR DETECTION OF LINKAGE IN FAMILIAL DISEASES

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 30 (3), 308-321
Abstract
A nonparametric method for the detection of critical genes associated with familial diseases was presented. The method involves the detection of deviations from expected identity by descent distributions at polymorphic marker loci for affected sib pairs. The method avoids the difficulties arising from incomplete penetrance, variable age of onset and other complications present in other forms of linkage analysis. The theoretical properties of the method were worked out in detail for 2 important cases-that of an incompletely penetrant recessive or incompletely penetrant dominant critical autosomal gene linked to a codominant marker locus. An easily implementable decision rule for the detection of linkage was proposed, and its operating characteristics for a variety of alternative hypothesis were obtained.