PICcalc: An Online Program to Calculate Polymorphic Information Content for Molecular Genetic Studies

• DOI: 10.1007/s10528-012-9509-1
• Publication Date: 2012-05-09T07:57:03Z
• Authors: Sándor Nagy; Péter Poczai; István Cernák; Ahmad Mousapour G...; Géza Hegedűs; János Taller
• Keywords: Genetic Markers; Heterozygote; Internet; 0303 health sciences; Polymorphism, Genetic; DNA Fingerprinting; Online Systems; 03 medical and health sciences; Genetics, Population; Gene Frequency; Genetic Loci; Alleles; Software

IntroductionMolecular markers have proved to be valuable tools in the characterization andevaluation of genetic diversity within and between species and populations. Markersystems differ in their information content, which depends on polymorphism. Theconcept of polymorphism is used to define genetic variation in a population, whichhas been extensively studied in recent years by several established scientificdisciplines, for example, genetics, ecology, zoology, and microbiology (Mukherjeeet al. 2010; Muneer et al. 2011; Rajkumar et al. 2011). Examples are numerous andobvious. For the practical design of molecular genetic studies, a few questions mustbe considered. How difficult will it be to find usefully polymorphic loci? How manymarkers are needed? How polymorphic must each marker be? These questions canbe answered by measuring the information content of the markers. There are twomeasures of the quality or informativeness of a polymorphism as a genetic marker:heterozygosity (H) and polymorphic information content (PIC). Since its firstapplication by Botstein et al. (1980) PIC has become the most widely applied