Ancestral Haplotype Reconstruction in Endogamous Populations using Identity-By-Descent
Authors: Finke Kelly , Kourakos Michael , Brown Gabriela , Dang Huyen Trang , Tan Shi Jie Samuel , Simons Yuval B. , Ramdas Shweta , Schäffer Alejandro A. , Kember Rachel L. , Bućan Maja , Mathieson Sara 
Published: January 2020

In this work we develop a novel algorithm for reconstructing the genomes of ancestral individuals, given genotype or sequence data from contemporary individuals and an extended pedigree of family relationships. A pedigree with complete genomes for every individual enables the study of allele frequency dynamics and haplotype diversity across generations, including deviations from neutrality such as transmission distortion. When studying heritable diseases, ancestral haplotypes can be used to augment genome-wide association studies and track disease inheritance patterns. The building blocks of our reconstruction algorithm are segments of Identity-By-Descent (IBD) shared between two or more genotyped individuals. The method alternates between identifying a source for each IBD segment and assembling IBD segments placed within each ancestral individual. Unlike previous approaches, our method is able to accommodate complex pedigree structures with hundreds of individuals genotyped at millions of SNPs.

We apply our method to an Old Order Amish pedigree from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, whose founders came to the United States from Europe during the early 18th century. The pedigree includes 1338 individuals from the past 10 generations, 394 with genotype data. The motivation for reconstruction is to understand the genetic basis of diseases segregating in the family through tracking haplotype transmission over time. Using our algorithm thread, we are able to reconstruct an average of 224 ancestral individuals per chromosome. For these ancestral individuals, on average we reconstruct 79% of their haplotypes. We also identify a region on chromosome 16 that is difficult to reconstruct – we find that this region harbors a short Amish-specific copy number variation and the geneHYDIN.threadwas developed for endogamous populations, but can be applied to any extensive pedigree with the recent generations genotyped. We anticipate that this type of practical ancestral reconstruction will become more common and necessary to understand rare and complex heritable diseases in extended families.

Author summary

When analyzing complex heritable traits, it is often useful to have genomic data from many generations of an extended family, to increase the amount of information available for statistical inference. However, we typically only have genomic data from the recent generations of a pedigree, as ancestral individuals are deceased. In this work we present an algorithm, calledthread, for reconstructing the genomes of ancestral individuals, given a complex pedigree and genomic data from the recent generations. Previous approaches have not been able to accommodate large datasets (both in terms of sites and individuals), made simplifying assumptions about pedigree structure, or did not tie reconstructed sequences back to specific individuals. We applythreadto a complex Old Order Amish pedigree of 1338 individuals, 394 with genotype data.