G. (Gerrit) Gort: “On some surprising statistical properties of a DNA fingerprinting technique called AFLP”

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20 Jan 2010 16:00
Unit: Wageningen University
Location: Aula, building 362, Gen. Foulkesweg 1, Wageningen
Organisation: Wageningen University
Promotor: prof.dr. A. Stein (Mathematical and Statistical Methods)
Promotor: Prof.dr. F.A. van Eeuwijk

 In the life sciences genetic studies are plentiful. In many of these studies the DNA of organisms is the target, and AFLP is a technique to study DNA: it cuts the DNA molecules into fragments, selects a tiny fraction of them, and makes the selection visible by separation of fragments by length. The result is a absence – presence profile of bands, like a bar code. Different organisms typically have different profiles. We study how often by chance fragments of the same length will form in profiles. This event is surprisingly more common than one would think. A simpler version of this problem is known as the birthday problem: only 23 persons are needed to have the odds in favour of the event of persons sharing a birthday.

Due to chance similarity, commonly used coefficients overestimate true similarity. We formulate corrected versions of these coefficients. Our results contribute to a better understanding of AFLP data. Examples of AFLP in lettuce and tomato serve as illustrations.
Titel proefschrift: "On some surprising statistical properties of a DNA fingerprinting technique called AFLP"

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