Lecture 10 Flashcards
(60 cards)
Quantitative Genetics
- The genetic analysis of complex characteristics
- vary along a continuous scale
Quantitative Trait Loci
chromosome regions containing genes that influence a quantitative trait
polygenic
encoded by multiple genes
Quantitative characteristics
- many are influenced by genes at many loci (polygenic) and influenced by environmental factors.
- vary along a scale of measurement with many overlapping phenotypes.
Quantitative Traits (continuous traits)
- the relationship between genotype and phenotype is more complex
- if the characteristics is polygenic, many different genotypes are possible, several of which may produce the same phenotype.
Discontinuous Traits
- the relationship between genotype and phenotype is straightforward
- each genotype produces a single phenotypes, and most phenotypes are encoded by a single genotype
- dominance and epistasis may allow two or three genotypes to produce the same phenotype but the relationship is simple
Multiple factor hypothesis
- expression depends on the additive effects of a number of genes
- the effect of each gene is small
- environment plays an important role in expression of the trait
Meristic characteristics
- measured in whole numbers
- limited number of phenotypes but the underlying determination of the characteristics may still be quantitative
- ex. litter size
Threshold characteristic
- simply absent or present
- the presence of some diseases can be considered a threshold characteristic
- when susceptibility is larger than a threshold value, a specific trait is expressed
frequency distribution
- a graph of the frequencies (numbers or proportions) of the different phenotypes
- connecting the points of a frequency distribution with a line creates a curve that is characteristic of the distribution
normal distribution
symmetrical bell shaped curve exhibited by many quantitative characteristics
mean
- average
- provides information about the center of the distribution
- adding up all the individual measurements and diving by the total number of measurements in the sample
variance
- the variability of a group of measurements, or how spread out the distribution is (width of the curve)
- the larger the variance, the greater the spread of measurements in a distribution about its mean
- s^2 or o^2 - the average squared deviation from the mean
standard deviation
- s or o
- the square root of the variance
Mean +/- standard deviation
+/- 1 SD - 66% of measurements in a normal distribution
+/- 2 SD - 95%
+/- 3 SD - 99%
General Statistical Model
Phenotype = Genotype + Environment + Genotype*Environment Interaction
The quantity that drives selection
- variance NOT mean
- if there is no genetic variation in the strain we are studying, there can be no genetic improvement
Phenotypic variance
a measure of the degree of phenotypic differences among a group of individuals
Components of phenotypic variance
- genetic variance
- environmental variance
- genie-environmental interaction variance
Genetic variance
- VarG
- phenotypic variance due to differences in genotypes among different individuals of the population
Environmental variance
- VarE
- phenotypic variance due to differences in environment among different individuals of the population
Genia-Environmental interaction variance
- VarGE
- phenotypic variance due to interaction between genotype and environment.
- genotypes are expressed differently in different environments
Simplified statistical model
- if we constrain the environment to a narrow range, then we may be able to ignore the interaction terms
- now becomes VarP=VarG+VarE
heritability
- the fraction of phenotypic variation that is directly attributable to variation in genotypes
- can be used to predict the rate and amount of selection response in a breeding program