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I have this equation: Corresponds to HW in equilibria with three alleles:

$(p+q+r)^2=1$

Expanding the square results:

$p^2+2pq+r^2+2pr+q^2+2qr = 1$

I need to separate homozygous and heterozygous, that means: $2pq+2pr+2qr=1-p^2-q^2-r^2$

How I can use a equivalence similar to $(p=1-q) or (q=1-p)$ in two alleles to resolve the last equation?

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    $\begingroup$ in this case it will be r=1-p-q and similarly for others $\endgroup$
    – WYSIWYG
    May 24, 2013 at 6:48
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    $\begingroup$ Why do you need to separate homozygotes from heterozygotes? $\endgroup$ May 24, 2013 at 8:52
  • $\begingroup$ I'm with jkadlubowska - what's the purpose of separating hetero and homozygotes? $\endgroup$
    – MCM
    May 24, 2013 at 12:40
  • $\begingroup$ To calculate the proportion of the alleles (p, q and r), if the homozygotes are three times than heterozygotes. $\endgroup$ May 24, 2013 at 21:56
  • $\begingroup$ So you omitted some data of this question? The thing is, you can substitute whatever you want, e.g. 1-p=q+r or p=1-q-r, but that leads you nowhere if you don't have any more data. Something like p^2+q^2+r^2=3pq+3pr+3rq is crucial to solving this problem. Anyway - these are two equasions, you still need a third to ba able to assign specific numbers to p, q and r. $\endgroup$ May 25, 2013 at 5:08

1 Answer 1

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Everybody said it already, but there is none. The original HWE equation ($(p+q)^2=1$) works because you've got two variables and two equations ($p+q=1$) to work with (in reality, these are just one equation and one variable, since $q=1-p$ so $p+(1-p))^2=1$). Now you have three variables and still only the one equation ($p+q+r=1$) which is, mathematically, impossible.

You need go out and measure some frequencies. In particular, you need to measure two of them - I'd choose two of the homozygous types for convenience's sake.

This basically summarizes everything nicely for ya: http://www.bio.miami.edu/dana/dox/trinomial.html

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  • $\begingroup$ mathematically impossible -> mathematically insolvable. Its quite possible. $\endgroup$
    – shigeta
    Feb 9, 2014 at 6:10

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