Testing linkage equilibrium on allelic data between VNTR loci.

We extend Geisser and Johnson's methods and propose simple tests for linkage equilibrium of fragment lengths between VNTR loci. The tests are shown to have asymptomatically normal or chi-square null distributions. They are applied to the reference databases of Asian populations, including the Hong Kong Chinese, Singapore Chinese, Singapore Malays, and Singapore Indians. It seems that there is little linkage disequilibrium in the data.