A simple allele sharing statistic for multiple locus systems

For complex disorders where the actions of several interacting loci must be taken into account, current methods of joint linkage analysis are problematic. We have undertaken an exploration of simultaneous search statistics originally proposed by Dupuis et al. [1995]. Additionally, we have extended these methods slightly and propose here a simple simultaneous search statistic based upon the single-point allele sharing statistic calculated from GENEHUNTER (GH). The use of conditional search techniques is also explored.