MLIP: A Multiprocessor Linkage Analysis System

This paper describes MLIP, a multiprocessor two- point genetic linkage analysis system that supports statistical calculations, such as the posterior probability of linkage (PPL), based on the full multidimensional parameter space implicit in the linkage likelihood. We provide empirical results on a wide variety of data showing that MLIP does significantly speed up two-point log-likelihood ratio calculations over a grid space of model parameters. Thanks to MLIP, full multidimensional genome scans are now routinely being completed at our centers with runtimes on the order of days, not months or years.