PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Gorelick, Root
AU  - Laubichler, Manfred D.
TI  - Decomposing Multilocus Linkage Disequilibrium
AID  - 10.1534/genetics.166.3.1581
DP  - 2004 Mar 01
TA  - Genetics
PG  - 1581--1583
VI  - 166
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.genetics.org/content/166/3/1581.short
4100  - http://www.genetics.org/content/166/3/1581.full
SO  - Genetics2004 Mar 01; 166
AB  - We present a mathematically precise formulation of total linkage disequilibrium between multiple loci as the deviation from probabilistic independence and provide explicit formulas for all higher-order terms of linkage disequilibrium, thereby combining J. Dausset et al.'s 1978 definition of linkage disequilibrium with H. Geiringer's 1944 approach. We recursively decompose higher-order linkage disequilibrium terms into lower-order ones. Our greatest simplification comes from defining linkage disequilibrium at a single locus as allele frequency at that locus. At each level, decomposition of linkage disequilibrium is mathematically equivalent to number theoretic compositions of positive integers; i.e., we have converted a genetic decomposition into a mathematical decomposition.