© The Author(s) 2013. Published by the Genetics Society of America. XSim: Simulation of Descendants from Ancestors with Sequence Data

Real or imputed high-density SNP genotypes are routinely used for genomic prediction and genome-wide association studies. Many researchers are moving towards the use of actual or imputed next generation sequence data in whole-genome analyses. Simulation studies are useful to mimic complex scenarios and test different analytical methods. We have developed a software tool XSim to efficiently simulate sequence data in descendants in arbitrary pedigrees. In this software, a strategy to drop down origins and positions of chromosomal segments rather than every allele state is implemented to simulate sequence data and accommodate complicated pedigree structures across multiple generations. Both C++ and Julia versions of XSim have been developed