Thread: estimation

hi everyone, I have a question about my assignment.... I solved it, but still am not sure if the way is correct or not...is thr any one who can help me with it????
the question is : A scientist is trying to estimate the mutation rate in a particular 1000 bp gene. He samples 20 people randomly, and then chooses the most commonly seen sequence as the reference sequence. After that, all other sequences are compared to this reference sequence, and the number of nucleotide differences is recorded as follows: 0; 0; 1; 0; 0; 2; 1; 0; 3; 1; 0; 0; 0; 1; 0; 0; 2; 0; 0; 0

Give a reasonble estimate of the mutation rate for that particular sequence.

Originally Posted by memol

hi everyone, I have a question about my assignment.... I solved it, but still am not sure if the way is correct or not...is thr any one who can help me with it????
the question is : A scientist is trying to estimate the mutation rate in a particular 1000 bp gene. He samples 20 people randomly, and then chooses the most commonly seen sequence as the reference sequence. After that, all other sequences are compared to this reference sequence, and the number of nucleotide differences is recorded as follows: 0; 0; 1; 0; 0; 2; 1; 0; 3; 1; 0; 0; 0; 1; 0; 0; 2; 0; 0; 0

Give a reasonble estimate of the mutation rate for that particular sequence.

Please show your solution (in detail) so that someone might review it.

Originally Posted by memol

hi everyone, I have a question about my assignment.... I solved it, but still am not sure if the way is correct or not...is thr any one who can help me with it????
the question is : A scientist is trying to estimate the mutation rate in a particular 1000 bp gene. He samples 20 people randomly, and then chooses the most commonly seen sequence as the reference sequence. After that, all other sequences are compared to this reference sequence, and the number of nucleotide differences is recorded as follows: 0; 0; 1; 0; 0; 2; 1; 0; 3; 1; 0; 0; 0; 1; 0; 0; 2; 0; 0; 0

Give a reasonble estimate of the mutation rate for that particular sequence.

Is there no further contextual information for this question (like time since last common ancestor say)?

CB

No, nothing...but I have already solved it...tanX