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Published on: May 7, 2021
How Much Does Inbreeding Reduce Heterozygosity? Empirical Results from Aedes aegypti
Jeffrey R Powell1, Benjamin R Evans2
1Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. jeffrey.powell@yale.edu.
Abstract:
Deriving strains of mosquitoes with reduced genetic variation is useful, if not necessary, for many genetic studies. Inbreeding is the standard way of achieving this. Full-sib inbreeding the mosquito Aedes aegypti for seven generations reduced heterozygosity to 72% of the initial heterozygosity in contrast to the expected 13%. This deviation from expectations is likely due to high frequencies of deleterious recessive alleles that, given the number of markers studied (27,674 single nucleotide polymorphisms [SNPs]), must be quite densely spread in the genome.
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