Skip to main content
Genetics logoLink to Genetics
. 1986 Aug;113(4):1057–1076. doi: 10.1093/genetics/113.4.1057

On the Divergence of Alleles in Nested Subsamples from Finite Populations

Richard R Hudson 1, Norman L Kaplan 1
PMCID: PMC1202911  PMID: 3744026

Abstract

Within-population variation at the DNA level will rarely be studied by sequencing of loci of randomly chosen individuals. Instead, individuals will usually be chosen for sequencing based on some knowledge of their genotype. Data collected in this way require new sampling theory. Motivated by these observations, we have examined the sampling properties of a finite population model with two mutation processes and with no selection or recombination. One mutation process generates new alleles according to an infinite-alleles model, and the other generates polymorphisms at sites according to an infinite-sites model. A sample of n genes is considered. The stationary distribution of the number of segregating sites in a subsample from one of the allelic classes in the sample conditional on the allelic configuration of the sample is studied. A recursive scheme is developed to compute the moments of this distribution, and it is shown that the distribution is functionally independent of the number of additional alleles in the sample and their respective frequencies in the sample. For the case in which the sample contains only two alleles, the distribution of the number of segregating sites in a subsample containing both alleles conditional on the sample frequencies of the alleles is studied. The results are applied to the analysis of DNA sequences of two alleles found at the Adh locus of Drosophila melanogaster. No significant departure from the neutral model is detected.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (996.8 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Griffiths R. C. Lines of descent in the diffusion approximation of neutral Wright-Fisher models. Theor Popul Biol. 1980 Feb;17(1):37–50. doi: 10.1016/0040-5809(80)90013-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Hudson R. R., Kaplan N. L. Statistical properties of the number of recombination events in the history of a sample of DNA sequences. Genetics. 1985 Sep;111(1):147–164. doi: 10.1093/genetics/111.1.147. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Kreitman M. Nucleotide polymorphism at the alcohol dehydrogenase locus of Drosophila melanogaster. Nature. 1983 Aug 4;304(5925):412–417. doi: 10.1038/304412a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Watterson G. A. Heterosis or neutrality? Genetics. 1977 Apr;85(4):789–814. doi: 10.1093/genetics/85.4.789. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Genetics are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES