Dependence of paracentric inversion rate on tract length

Background: We develop a Bayesian method based on MCMC for estimating the relative rates of pericentric and paracentric inversions from marker data from two species. The method also allows estimation of the distribution of inversion tract lengths. Results: We apply the method to data from Drosophila melanogaster and D. yakuba. We find that pericentric inversions occur at a much lower rate compared to paracentric inversions. The average paracentric inversion tract length is approx. 4.8 Mb with small inversions being more frequent than large inversions. If the two breakpoints defining a paracentric inversion tract are uniformly and independently distributed over chromosome arms there will be more short tract-length inversions than long; we find an even greater preponderance of short tract lengths than this would predict. Thus there appears to be a correlation between the positions of breakpoints which favors shorter tract lengths. Conclusion: The method developed in this paper provides ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Thomas L. York, Richard Durrett, Rasmus Nielsen
• Keywords: BMCBI 2007, Inversion Tract, Inversion Tract Length, Paracentric Inversion