A method for haplotype inference in general pedigrees without recombination

The abundance of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) makes the haplotype-based method instead of single-maker-oriented method the main approach to association studies on QTL mapping. The key problem in haploptype-based method is how to reconstruct haplotypes from genotype data. Directly assaying haplotypes in diploid individuals by experimental methods is too expensive, therefore the in silico haplotyping-determination methods are the major choice at the present. This paper presents a rapid and reliable algorithm for haplotype reconstruction for tightly linked SNPs in general pedigrees. It is based on six rules and consists of three steps. First, the parental origins of alleles in offspring are assigned conditional on genotypes in parent-offspring trios; second, the redundant haplotypes are eliminated based on the six rules; and finally, the most likely haplotype combinations are chosen via maximum likelihood method. Our method was verified and compared with PEDPHASE by simulated data with different pedigree sizes, numbers of loci, and proportions of missing genotypes. The result shows that our algorithm was superior to PEDPHASE in terms of computing time and accuracy of haplotype estimation. The computing time for 100 runs was 10―15 times less and the accuracy was 4%―10% higher than PEDPHASE. The result also indicates that our method was very robust and was hardly affected by pedigree size, number of loci, and proportion of missing genotypes.

A method for haplotype inference in general pedigrees without recombination

The abundance of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) makes the haplotype-based method instead of single-maker-oriented method the main approach to association studies on QTL mapping. The key problem in haploptype-based method is how to reconstruct haplotypes from genotype data. Directly assaying haplotypes in diploid individuals by experimental methods is too expensive, therefore the in silico haplotyping-determination methods are the major choice at the present. This paper presents a rapid and reliable algorithm for haplotype reconstruction for tightly linked SNPs in general pedigrees. It is based on six rules and consists of three steps. First, the parental origins of alleles in offspring are assigned conditional on genotypes in parent-offspring trios; second, the redundant haplotypes are eliminated based on the six rules; and finally, the most likely haplotype combinations are chosen via maximum likelihood method. Our method was verified and compared with PEDPHASE by simulated data with different pedigree sizes, numbers of loci, and proportions of missing genotypes. The result shows that our algorithm was superior to PEDPHASE in terms of computing time and accuracy of haplotype estimation. The computing time for 100 runs was 10–15 times less and the accuracy was 4%–10% higher than PEDPHASE. The result also indicates that our method was very robust and was hardly affected by pedigree size, number of loci, and proportion of missing genotypes. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 30430500) and the National Key Basic Research Program (Grant No. 2006CB102104)