McRae Allan F, Pemberton Josephine M, Visscher Peter M
Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, United Kingdom.
Genetics. 2005 Sep;171(1):251-8. doi: 10.1534/genetics.105.040972. Epub 2005 Jun 18.
The use of linkage disequilibrium to localize the genes underlying quantitative traits has received considerable attention in the livestock genetics community over the past few years. This has resulted in the investigation of linkage disequilibrium structures of several domestic livestock populations to assess their potential use in fine-mapping efforts. However, the linkage disequilibrium structure of free-living populations has been less well investigated. As the direct evaluation of linkage disequilibrium can be both time consuming and expensive the use of simulations that include as many aspects of population history as possible is advocated as an alternative. A simulation of the linkage disequilibrium structure of the Soay sheep population of St. Kilda, Scotland, is provided as an example. The simulated population showed significant decline of linkage disequilibrium with genetic distance and low levels of background linkage disequilibrium, indicating that the Soay sheep population is a viable resource for linkage disequilibrium fine mapping of quantitative trait loci.
在过去几年中，利用连锁不平衡来定位数量性状背后的基因在畜牧遗传学领域受到了相当大的关注。这导致了对几个家养牲畜群体的连锁不平衡结构进行研究，以评估它们在精细定位工作中的潜在用途。然而，对自由生活群体的连锁不平衡结构研究较少。由于直接评估连锁不平衡既耗时又昂贵，因此提倡使用尽可能包含群体历史多个方面的模拟作为替代方法。以苏格兰圣基尔达岛的索艾羊群体的连锁不平衡结构模拟为例。模拟群体显示连锁不平衡随遗传距离显著下降，且背景连锁不平衡水平较低，这表明索艾羊群体是进行数量性状基因座连锁不平衡精细定位的可行资源。
