Allele Age Under Non-Classical Assumptions is Clarified by an Exact Computational Markov Chain Approach.

ABSTRACT: Determination of the age of an allele based on its population frequency is a well-studied problem in population genetics, for which a variety of approximations have been proposed. We present a new result that, surprisingly, allows the expectation and variance of allele age to be computed exactly (within machine precision) for any finite absorbing Markov chain model in a matter of seconds. This approach makes none of the classical assumptions (e.g., weak selection, reversibility, infinite sites), exploits modern sparse linear algebra techniques, integrates over all sample paths, and is rapidly computable for Wright-Fisher populations up to N _e  = 100,000. With this approach, we study the joint effect of recurrent mutation, dominance, and selection, and demonstrate new examples of

SUBMITTER: De Sanctis B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5605573 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature