Homogeneity tests among groups for microsatellite data

We propose a homogeneity test among groups on a quadratic distance measure. The underlying mutation process in the microsatellite loci is studied using the stepwise mutation model. Asymptotic normality of the test statistic is proved under very mild regularity conditions. Resampling methods, such as jackknife, are used in the application to build confidence intervals for the difference in allelic variation between and within groups. The method is applied in a real data to test whether there are differences in the distribution of the repeated sequence among groups defined by ethnicity and alcoholism index (ALDX1).