1,750 research outputs found
Two ethnic-specific polymorphisms in the human beta pseudogene of hemoglobin
Two polymorphic sites, -107 C --> T and -100 G --> C with respect to the cap site of the human beta pseudogene of the hemoglobin gene, are described. They have been studied in five European, one Indian, two Asian, and two sub-Saharan African populations. The -107 C -->T site turned out to be polymorphic in all five European populations and the Indian population (pooled q = 0.142 +/- 0.018) and in the two Asian populations (pooled q = 0.073 +/- 0.025), but it was monomorphic in the two sub-Saharan populations. On the contrary, the -100 G --> C site was polymorphic in the two sub-Saharan samples (q = 0.093 +/- 0.024), but the variant allele was not found in any of the European, Indian, or Asian samples. Thus this only g-bp-long stretch of DNA is informative for estimating the extent of genetic admixture in sub-Saharan Africans
Dna polymorphisms and genome structure: different scale of variation in the human genome
Haemoglobin S and haemoglobin C: 'quick but costly' versus 'slow but gratis' genetic adaptations to Plasmodium falciparum malaria.
Haemoglobin S (HbS; beta6Glu-->Val) and HbC (beta6Glu-->Lys) strongly protect against clinical Plasmodium falciparum malaria. HbS, which is lethal in homozygosity, has a multi-foci origin and a widespread geographic distribution in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia whereas HbC, which has no obvious CC segregational load, occurs only in a small area of central West-Africa. To address this apparent paradox, we adopted two partially independent haplotypic approaches in the Mossi population of Burkina Faso where both the local S (S(Benin)) and the C alleles are common (0.05 and 0.13). Here we show that: both C and S(Benin) are monophyletic; C has accumulated a 4-fold higher recombinational and DNA slippage haplotypic variability than the S(Benin) allele (P = 0.003) implying higher antiquity; for a long initial lag period, the C alleles did apparently remain very few. These results, consistent with epidemiological evidences, imply that the C allele has been accumulated mainly through a recessive rather than a semidominant mechanism of selection. This evidence explains the apparent paradox of the uni-epicentric geographic distribution of HbC, representing a 'slow but gratis' genetic adaptation to malaria through a transient polymorphism, compared to the polycentric 'quick but costly' adaptation through balanced polymorphism of HbS
Human Y-chromosome dinucleotide haplotypes in Europe, North Africa and West Asia reveal specific patterns of geographical distribution.
Differential structuring of human populations for X and Y homologous microsatellite loci.
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