DNAprint Genomics (DNAG)

[mingwan0]

USC Department of Biological Sciences seminars

http://biosci.usc.edu/seminars/mcb.asp

5/6/2004, Thu, 2:00 PM
Choosing informative markers for inference of ancestry
by Noah Rosenberg / USC



http://www-hto.usc.edu/~noahr/projects.html

Current areas of interest:

The shapes of gene trees from one or more species.

Genotype change rates and serial samples in molecular epidemiology.

Human population structure and genetic history, and information content of genetic markers about ancestry.

Rosenberg NA, Li LM, Ward R, Pritchard JK. Informativeness of genetic markers for inference of ancestry. Am J Hum Genet. 2003 Dec;73(6):1402-22.

Program in Molecular and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA. [e-mail]

Inference of individual ancestry is useful in various applications, such as admixture mapping and structured-association mapping. Using information-theoretic principles, we introduce a general measure, the informativeness for assignment (I(n)), applicable to any number of potential source populations, for determining the amount of information that multiallelic markers provide about individual ancestry. In a worldwide human microsatellite data set, we identify markers of highest informativeness for inference of regional ancestry and for inference of population ancestry within regions; these markers, which are listed in online-only tables in our article, can be useful both in testing for and in controlling the influence of ancestry on case-control genetic association studies. Markers that are informative in one collection of source populations are generally informative in others. Informativeness of random dinucleotides, the most informative class of microsatellites, is five to eight times that of random single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), but 2%-12% of SNPs have higher informativeness than the median for dinucleotides. Our results can aid in decisions about the type, quantity, and specific choice of markers for use in studies of ancestry.

http://www.gs.washington.edu/news/oldseminars.htm

Wed, February 25 - Dr. Noah Rosenberg, Research Associate, Program in Molecular and Computational Biology, University of Southern Calfornia
"Genome-wide Analysis of Human Variation and Population Structure"