Center for Bioinformatics and Molecular Biostatistics

This is a short note on the mating scheme used by the Mutagenesis Project. We present a probabilistic analysis of the distribution of the number of mutants in the G3 generation. It is shown to be a function of the number of G2 mothers and litter sizes. A computer program is provided to make the calculation. We quantify the odds of a G2 mother being a mutation carrier given that none of its progeny are mutants. Finally we analyze some data from the project; we find the data to be consistent with theory.