ASYMPTOTIC DISTRIBUTIONS OF POLYLOCUS TEST STATISTICS

Polylocus linkage analysis methods are modified two-point analyses whi ch aim to approach the information gain of multilocus analysis. Terwil liger and Ott [(1992) Am J Hum Genet 51:A202, (1993) Genet Epidemiol 1 0:477-482] put forth two such methods. This paper presents asymptotic approximations to the null distribution of the likelihood ratio statis tics for these two methods, correcting earlier reports [Terwilliger an d Ott (1993) Genet Epidemiol 10:477-482; Schaid and Elston (1994) Gene t Epidemiol 11:1-17]. The performance of the approximations is then as sessed for finite samples of fully informative meioses. (C) 1995 Wiley -Liss, Inc.