Accurate genetic data are important prerequisite of performing genetic linkage test or association test. Currently, most analytical methods assume that the observed genotypes are correct. However, due to the constraint at the technical level, most of the genetic data that people used so far contain errors. In this paper, we considered the problem of QTL mapping based on biological data with genotyping errors. By analysing all possible genotypes of each individual in framework of multiple-interval mapping, we proposed an algorithm of inferring all model parameters through the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm and discussed the hypothesis testing of the existence of QTL. We carried out extensive simulation studies to assess the proposed method. Simulation results showed that the new method outperforms the method that does not take the genotyping errors into account, and therefore it can decrease the impact of genotyping errors on QTL mapping. The proposed method was also applied to analyse a real barley dataset.

The analysis of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) aims at mapping and estimating the positions and effects of the genes that may affect the quantitative trait, and evaluating the relationship between the gene variation and the phenotype. In existing studies, most methods mainly focus on the association/linkage between multiple gene loci and one trait, in which some useful joint information of multiple traits may be ignored. In this paper, we proposed a method of simultaneously estimating all QTL parameters in the framework of multiple-trait multiple-interval mapping. Simulation results show that in accuracy aspect, the proposed methodoutperforms an existing method for mapping multiple traits. A real example is also provided to validate the performance of the new method.