The Genetic Architecture of Quantitative Traits Cannot Be Inferred from Variance Component Analysis.
Classical quantitative genetic analyses estimate additive and non-additive genetic and environmental components of variance from phenotypes of related individuals without knowing the identities of quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Many studies have found a large proportion of quantitative trait variat...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2016-11-01
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| Series: | PLoS Genetics |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5094750?pdf=render |
| Summary: | Classical quantitative genetic analyses estimate additive and non-additive genetic and environmental components of variance from phenotypes of related individuals without knowing the identities of quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Many studies have found a large proportion of quantitative trait variation can be attributed to the additive genetic variance (VA), providing the basis for claims that non-additive gene actions are unimportant. In this study, we show that arbitrarily defined parameterizations of genetic effects seemingly consistent with non-additive gene actions can also capture the majority of genetic variation. This reveals a logical flaw in using the relative magnitudes of variance components to indicate the relative importance of additive and non-additive gene actions. We discuss the implications and propose that variance component analyses should not be used to infer the genetic architecture of quantitative traits. |
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| ISSN: | 1553-7390 1553-7404 |