Methods for assessing gene content diversity of KIR with examples from a global set of populations.

ABSTRACT: A number of statistical methods are widely used to describe allelic variation at specific genetic loci and its implication on the evolutionary history of these loci. Although the methods were developed primarily to study allelic variation at loci that are virtually always present in the genome, they are often applied to data of gene content variation (i.e., presence/absence of multiple homologous genes) at the killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene cluster. In this paper, we discuss methodological issues involved in the analysis of gene content variation data in the KIR region and also its covariation with polymorphism at the human leukocyte antigen class I loci, which encode ligands for KIR. A comparison of several statistical methods and measures (gene frequency, haplotype f

SUBMITTER: Single RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2663517 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature