Determining the Polymorphism Information Content of a molecular marker

Abstract

This review was carried out with the purpose of contributing to the discussion on the equations used in calculating the Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) of molecular markers. PIC measures the ability of a marker to detect polymorphisms, and therefore has enormous importance in selecting markers for genetic studies. We perform a summary analysis of PIC and its difference in relation to heterozygosity, another parameter used to evaluate the quality of a marker, presenting and discussing the several equations registered in the literature for both dominant and codominant markers. Finally, we present a brief direction on estimating PIC for dominant markers.

Keywords: Genetic studies; Marker quality; PIC calculation; Polymorphism.