Some statistical properties of AFLP's
by
Gerrit Gort
Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Coauthors: Wim Koopman (Wageningen University)

AFLP is a DNA fingerprint technique, in which DNA fragments, formed after digestion with restriction enzymes, ligation of adaptors and selective amplification using primers, are separated on a gel. The separation on the gel is mainly caused by differences in fragmentlength. The result is a lane in which a number of bands, corresponding to specific fragmentlengths, is present. The presence of a band tells us that at least one fragment of a specific length was formed. We studied some statistical properties of the resulting AFLP's. The well-known birthday paradox appeared to play a role. An application is given to the comparison of AFLP's from non-related species of plants. In this study in-silico AFLP's were formed for the complete Arabidopsis genome.

Date received: April 10, 2002