Number of Gene Loci required for Accurate Estimation of Ancestral Population Proportions in Individual Human Hybrids

Abstract

GENETIC studies giving estimates of the Caucasian genetic contribution to American blacks have recently been reviewed and extended¹. These group admixture estimates are mean population values; but estimates of admixture proportions for individuals of hybrid origin, using genetic markers, have not been published. Recent interest in this possibility, however, has led to an explicit proposal for making such individual estimates^2,3. This communication is not concerned with the reasons for making such estimates nor with the uses to which they may be put. Its purpose is to demonstrate, by a simple argument, that the number of genetic marker loci required for reasonably accurate individual admixture estimates seems to be so large that such estimates cannot be made now or in the near future.