On the divergence of members of a transposable element family (Q1072962)

Statistical properties of the amount of divergence of members of a transposable element family are studied. The analysis is based on the model proposed by \textit{C. H. Langley}, \textit{J. F. Y. Brookfield} and the second author [Transposable elements in Mendelian populations. I. Genetics 104, 457-471 (1983)], describing the evolution of a family of selectively neutral transposable elements in a finite haploid population of size 2N. By considering the time back to the most recent common ancestor of two copies, both the probability of identity and the moments of the number of sites that differ between two sampled copies are obtained. Our analytic results are consistent with the numerical results of \textit{T. Ohta} [A model of duplicative transposition and gene conversion of repetitive DNA families. ibid. 110, 513-524 (1985)] for a similar model. The effects of gene conversion are also examined. In agreement with \textit{M. Slatkin} [Genetic differentiation of transposable elements under mutation and unbiased gene conversion. ibid. 110, 145-158 (1985)], we find that gene conversion has a minimal effect on the probability of identity providing that the rate of deletion is sufficiently large.