ANALYSIS OF GENETIC DATA FROM THE POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) makes possible rapid generation of a very large number of copies of a specific region of DNA. This enabl es the typing of quantities of DNA as small as a single molecule. PCR has led to the development of laboratory experiments which provide new approaches to many classic problems in genetics, such as estimation o f linkage, marker ordering and genetic disease diagnosis. We describe some of these experiments and the statistical techniques that have bee n used to design them and to analyze the data they produce.