ABSTRACT Recently, attention has focused on the use of whole-genome linkage disequilibrium (LD) studies to map common disease genes. Such studies would employ a dense map of single

nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to detect association between a marker and disease. Construction of SNP maps is currently underway. An essential issue yet to be settled is the required

marker density of such maps. Here, I use population simulations to estimate the extent of LD surrounding common gene variants in the general human population as well as in isolated

populations. Two main conclusions emerge from these investigations. First, a useful level of LD is unlikely to extend beyond an average distance of roughly 3 kb in the general population,

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS _This work grew out of conversations with E. Lander, and I am grateful for his advice and encouragement. I thank D. Altshuler, K. Ardlie, M. Cargill, H. Coller, G. Daley, M.

Daly, M. Eberle, J. Felsenstein, S. Kruglyak, S.-N. Liu, K. Markianos, D. Slonim, D. Wang and E. Wijsman for helpful discussions and comments on the manuscript, and M. Eberle for invaluable

assistance with simulations and figure preparation. The paper benefited from discussion during a meeting on SNPs held at the Banbury Center and from comments of anonymous referees. This

work was supported in part by grants from NHGRI and NIMH. L.K. is a James S. McDonnell Centennial Fellow._ AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research

Center, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, Seattle, 98109, Washington, USA L Kruglyak Authors * L Kruglyak View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Kruglyak, L. Prospects for whole-genome linkage disequilibrium mapping of common disease genes. _Nat

Genet_ 22, 139–144 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/9642 Download citation * Received: 23 December 1998 * Accepted: 15 April 1999 * Issue Date: June 1999 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/9642

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