Estimating parental relationship in linkage analysis of recessive traits

In linkage analysis of recessive traits, parental relationship is important. For the case that it is unknown, the question is investigated as to whether estimating parental relationship and using the estimated relationship in linkage analysis is beneficial. Results show that estimating parental relationship can reliably be carried out on the basis of 50-100 genetic marker loci (analysis based on theory by Thompson [1975: Am J Hum Genet 39:173-188]). Misspecification of parental relationship leads to a loss of linkage informativeness, but not to false-positive evidence for linkage. An asymptotic bias in the recombination fraction estimate occurs when parents are unrelated and falsely taken to be related, but no such bias is seen when related parents are taken to be unrelated. Results from this investigation suggest that an estimated parental relationship may be used in linkage analysis as if it were the correct relationship, when evidence for the estimated relationship is supported by a likelihood ratio of at least 10:1 against the parents being unrelated.