The genetic analysis of quantitative trait differences between two homozygous lines.

Previous maximum likelihood methods to analyze quantitative data on two inbred parental strains, their F1 and backcross generations are extended in three directions: (1) a method is suggested to transform the data to better satisfy the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity; (2) the likelihoods are modified to allow for litter correlations and heteroscedasticity and (3) allowance is made for the incorporation of F2 data. The problem of making a choice among a set of simple genetic hypotheses is further discussed.