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Linkage disequilibrium: what history has to tell us
Magnus Nordborg1, Simon Tavaré
1Molecular and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, 835 W 37th St, SHS172, Los Angeles, CA 90089-134, USA. magnus@usc.edu
Trends in Genetics : TIG
|January 31, 2002
Abstract:
Linkage disequilibrium has become important in the context of gene mapping. We argue that to understand the pattern of association between alleles at different loci, and of DNA sequence polymorphism in general, it is useful first to consider the underlying genealogy of the chromosomes. The stochastic process known as the coalescent is a convenient way to model such genealogies, and in this paper we set out the theory behind the coalescent and its implications for understanding linkage disequilibrium.