Where does the Luria-Delbrück distribution come from ?

Orateur : Bernard YCART (Laboratoire Jean Kuntzman, Grenoble)

The Luria-Delbrück distribution models mutant cell counts. It describes the statistical properties of observed mutant numbers in a cell culture, when the number of cells is large and the mutation probability is small. It is the base of the so called "fluctuation analysis", widely used in bacteriology and cancerology, that consists of estimating mutation rates in cell lineage studies. It depends on two parameters, interpreted as the expected number of mutations, and the relative fitness of normal cells compared to mutants. A probabilistic interpretation, combining the distributions of mutation numbers, duration of mutant clones, and number of mutants in a clone developing for a fixed duration, will be given. That interpretation applies not only to the classical hypotheses of independent, exponentially distributed lifetimes, but also to more realistic settings. Efficient algorithms have recently been proposed for the statistical estimation of the parameters. The talk is intended for non-specialists, and no probabilistic background will be assumed.

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