Polygene

Advances in statistical methodology and high throughput sequencing are, however, allowing researchers to locate candidate genes for the trait.

[2] In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all organisms living on Earth.

The frequency of the phenotypes of these traits generally follows a normal continuous variation distribution pattern.

This implies that traits such as height that are both highly heritable and normally distributed are necessarily polygenic.

QTL-mapping utilizes a phenomenon known as linkage disequilibrium by comparing known marker genes with correlated phenotypes.

Often, researchers will find a large region of DNA, called a locus, that accounts for a significant amount of the variation observed in the measured trait.

[13] Another interest of statistical geneticists using QTL mapping is to determine the complexity of the genetic architecture underlying a phenotypic trait.