Nucleotide diversity

Nucleotide diversity is a concept in molecular genetics which is used to measure the degree of polymorphism within a population. ^[1]

One commonly used measure of nucleotide diversity was first introduced by Nei and Li in 1979. This measure is defined as the average number of nucleotide differences per site between any two DNA sequences chosen randomly from the sample population, and is denoted by π.

It is given by the formula:

$\pi = \sum_{ij} x_i x_j \pi_{ij} = 2 * \sum_{i=1}^n \sum_{j=1}^{i-1} x_i x_j \pi_{ij}$

where x_i and x_j are the respective frequencies of the ith and jth sequences, π_ij is the number of nucleotide differences per nucleotide site between the ith and jth sequences, and n is the number of sequences in the sample.

Nucleotide diversity is a measure of genetic variation. It is usually associated with other statistical measures of population diversity, and is similar to expected heterozygosity. This statistic may be used to monitor diversity within or between ecological populations, to examine the genetic variation in crops and related species,^[2] or to determine evolutionary relationships.^[3]

Nucleotide diversity can be calculated by examining the DNA sequences directly, or may be estimated from molecular marker data, such as Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) data ^[4] and Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) data.^[5]

Software

• DnaSP — DNA Sequence Polymorphism, is a software package for the analysis of nucleotide polymorphism from aligned DNA sequence data.
• MEGA, Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis, is a software package used for estimating rates of molecular evolution, as well as generating phylogenetic trees, and aligning DNA sequences. Available for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX (since ver. 5.x).
• Arlequin3 software can be used for calculations of nucleotide diversity and a variety of other statistical tests for intra-population and inter-population analyses. Available for Windows.
• Variscan

References

1. ^ "Mathematical Model for Studying Genetic Variation in Terms of Restriction Endonucleases". PNAS 76 (10): 5269–73. October 1, 1979. doi:10.1073/pnas.76.10.5269. PMC 413122. PMID 291943. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=413122. 
2. ^ "Molecular diversity at 18 loci in 321 wild and 92 domesticate lines reveal no reduction of nucleotide diversity during Triticum monococcum (Einkorn) domestication: implications for the origin of agriculture". Molecular Biology and Evolution 24 (12): 2657–68. December 2007. doi:10.1093/molbev/msm192. PMID 17898361. 
3. ^ "Nucleotide diversity in gorillas". Genetics 166 (3): 1375–83. March 2004. doi:10.1534/genetics.166.3.1375. PMC 1470796. PMID 15082556. http://www.genetics.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=15082556. 
4. ^ "Estimating nucleotide diversity from random amplified polymorphic DNA and amplified fragment length polymorphism data". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 18 (1): 143–8. January 2001. doi:10.1006/mpev.2000.0865. PMID 11161751. 
5. ^ "A method for estimating nucleotide diversity from AFLP data". Genetics 151 (3): 1157–64. March 1, 1999. PMC 1460529. PMID 10049931. http://www.genetics.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=10049931.