TY - JOUR AU - Gomez-Raya, Luis AU - Silio, Luis AU - Rauw, Wendy M. AU - Gracia-Cortés, Luis Alberto AU - Rodríguez, Carmen PY - 2018 DA - 2018/08/17 TI - Extent of third-order linkage disequilibrium in a composite line of Iberian pigs JO - BMC Genetics SP - 60 VL - 19 IS - 1 AB - Previous studies on linkage disequilibrium have investigated second order linkage disequilibrium in animal and plant populations. The objective of this paper was to investigate the genome-wide levels of third order linkage disequilibrium in a composite line founded by admixture of four Iberian pig strains. A model for the generation of third order linkage disequilibrium by population admixture is proposed. A computer Expectation-Maximization algorithm is developed and applied to the estimation of third order linkage disequilibrium at inter- and intra-chromosomal level using 26,347 SNPs typed in 306 sows. The relationship of third order linkage disequilibrium with physical distance was investigated over 35 million triplets in SSC12. Basic and normalized estimates of inter and intra-chromosomal third order linkage disequilibrium are reported. SN - 1471-2156 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12863-018-0661-4 DO - 10.1186/s12863-018-0661-4 ID - Gomez-Raya2018 ER -