Data from: QTL detection power of multi-parental RIL populations in Arabidopsis thaliana

A major goal of today's biology is to understand the genetic basis of quantitative traits. This can be achieved by statistical methods that evaluate the association between molecular marker variation and phenotypic variation in different types of mapping populations. The objective of this work was to evaluate the statistical power of QTL detection of various multi-parental mating designs as well as to assess the reasons for the observed differences. Our study was based on empirical data of 20 Arabidopsis thaliana accessions which have been selected to capture the maximum genetic diversity. The examined mating designs differed strongly with respect to the statistical power to detect QTL. We observed the highest power to detect QTL for the diallel cross with random mating design. The results of our study suggested that performing sibling mating within subpopulations of joint linkage mapping populations has the potential to considerably increase the power for QTL detec tion. Our results, however, revealed that using designs in which more than two parental alleles segregate in each subpopulation increases the power even more.

当代生物学的核心目标之一，是解析数量性状的遗传基础。此类研究可通过统计方法实现：针对各类作图群体，评估分子标记变异与表型变异之间的关联。本研究旨在评估多种多亲本交配设计下数量性状位点（Quantitative Trait Locus, QTL）检测的统计功效，并解析观测到的功效差异的成因。本研究基于20份经筛选以最大化覆盖遗传多样性的拟南芥（Arabidopsis thaliana）种质系的实证数据。所评估的各类交配设计在QTL检测统计功效上差异显著。我们观测到，采用随机交配双列杂交设计时，QTL检测的统计功效最高。本研究结果表明，在联合连锁作图群体的亚群体内进行同胞交配，可显著提升QTL检测的统计功效。但本研究结果同时显示，采用在每个亚群体内有多于两种亲本等位基因分离的设计，可进一步提升检测功效。