The number of alleles in multigene families (Q909595)

Consider a Wright-Fisher population in which there is a large number 2N of homologous chromosomes. On each of them is a multigene family of n loci, and at each locus the gene can take any one of k (possibly infinitely many) alleles. It is supposed that each gene on each chromosome has a small probability of mutating into one of the k-1 alleles (or a new allele, if k is not finite). Moreover, there should be a small probability that any pair of loci is subject to gene conversion. Let \(K_ r\) denote the number of distinct alleles present on the \(r\cdot n\) loci of a random sample of r distinct chromosomes chosen from a stationary generation. The paper investigates the behaviour of \(K_ r\) by both analytic and simulation methods. Known results for \(r=1,2,3\) are reviewed. New theoretical methods for studying the distribution of \(K_ r\) and its moments are given. Hereby the k-allele case and the infinitely-many-alleles case are linked. Also a simulation method to handle other cases and some numerical examples are given.