Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium

Haky Im

2021-04-05

Categories: vignette

In a population with random mating and no migration, most common variants will be at Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE). The genotype of a variant in HWE with minor allele (\(a\)) with frequency maf will be distributed as follows

prob(AA): \(p = (1 - \text{maf})^2\)

prob(Aa): \(2 \cdot \text{maf} \cdot (1-\text(maf))\)

prob(aa): \(\text{maf}^2\)

In statistical terms, this means that each allele is inherited independently from the father and the mothersuch that the probability of each combination is the product of the frequencies.

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Citation

For attribution, please cite this work as

Haky Im (2021). Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium. BIOS 25328 Cancer Genomics Class Notes. /post/2021/04/05/hardy-weinberg-equilibrium/

BibTeX citation

@misc{
  title = "Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium",
  author = "Haky Im",
  year = "2021",
  journal = "BIOS 25328 Cancer Genomics Class Notes",
  note = "/post/2021/04/05/hardy-weinberg-equilibrium/"
}