The waiting time for m mutations

Abstract

We consider a model of a population of fixed size N in which each individual gets replaced at rate one and each individual experiences a mutation at rate μ. We calculate the asymptotic distribution of the time that it takes before there is an individual in the population with m mutations. Several different behaviors are possible, depending on how μchanges with N. These results have applications to the problem of determining the waiting time for regulatory sequences to appear and to models of cancer development.

Minor corrections and clarifications have been made

Cited by in corpus (2)

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