170,540 research outputs found
From genome to genome in the quest to decipher life
No full textThe development of biotechnologies, as the contemporary technological progress in general, not always holds in due consideration the interaction between Man, Earth, Animals and Plants. It is necessary, in our opinion, to develop, codify and divulge new ethical conceptions exceeding the economic approach between Man and Nature. If the scientist does not want to reduce his part to that of a simple "technician", he cannot avoid asking questions of social, cultural and ethical nature : each aspect of the sciences (practical or theoretical), in fact, involves the problem of their use by society, of which the researcher is part. A new ethics which faces without dogmatism the problems related to the precarious equilibrium between Man and the other elements of Nature is urgently needed. Today, global bioethics may be able to mediate between opposing ideologies by providing a common ground in health care, earth care and long-term survival: we need a global bioethic that will help the future generations to survive. This book aims at implementing research and education on the ethical problems risen by the ongoing developments in the Life Sciences and Technologies. It is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work resulting of fundamental and applied reflection on bioethical problems
Polynesian mitochondrial DNAs reveal three deep maternal lineage clusters
No full textThe 4000-year-old human population expansion into Remote Oceania has been studied from a variety of genetic perspectives. Here, we report the discovery that Polynesians, traditionally considered to be a single cohesive linguistic and cultural unit, exhibit at least three distinct mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) groups that probably shared a common maternal ancestor more than 85,000 years ago. The major lineage groups were first identified by PCR amplification of the mitochondrial region V deletion marker, known to be present at high frequency in Polynesian populations. Sequence analysis of mtDNA hypervariable control regions reveals a surprising number of lineages in Polynesia. We also note high sequence divergence between lineage groups deleted and not deleted in region V. Major group I lineages are common in Remote Oceania and include about 95% of the Native Hawaiian, 90% of the Samoan, and 100% of the Tongan donors in our sample. They contain the region V deletion and generally share three control region transition substitutions. This group also contains non-Polynesian individuals, such as Indonesians, Native Americans, Micronesians, Malaysians, Japanese, and Chinese. The group I Polynesians differ by 4.4% in sequence identity from major lineage group II Polynesians, who do not have the region V deletion and who share among themselves four distinct single-base substitutions. Group II individuals are seen at low frequency (< 10%) in Hawaii, Samoa, and the Cook Islands and may represent the predominant maternal lineage group of Papuan Melanesia. Major lineage group III, not found in Hawaii, tentatively links Samoa to Indonesia. Our observation of deep maternal genetic branches in Polynesia today confirms the notion that during the colonization of the Pacific, mainland Asian immigrants mixed with Melanesian peoples already inhabiting Near Oceania and carried a complex assortment of maternal genotypes derived from two distinct geographic sources to isolated island archipelagoes
ALUM: Discovering the history of the alum production through molecular archaeoanthropology and gamification.
No full textAn investigation of human apolipoproteins B and E polymorphisms in two African populations from Ethiopia and Benin
No full textThree polymorphisms (XbaI, EcoRI, and Ins /Del) of the apolipoprotein B (APOB) gene and the polymorphism of apolipoprotein E (APOE) were investigated in two population samples of Amhara and Oromo origin from Ethiopia, and in two population samples of Bariba and Berba origin from Benin. No heterogeneity was observed within each major group. The cumulated frequencies of the APOB X+ ,R+, and D alleles for the Ethiopia and the Benin groups were 0.268 and 0.133, 0.958 and 0.818, 0.206 and 0.223, respectively. Regarding APOE, the cumulated allele frequencies of Ethiopia and Benin were 0.031 and 0.103 for epsilon*2 allele, 0.811 and 0.742 for epsilon*3, and 0.143 and 0.155 for epsilon*4, respectively. APOE typing performed at the protein level only in the Ethiopians revealed a variant allele, epsilon*5, found at the polymorphic level both in the Amhara and in the Oromo (cumulated frequency: 0.015). A tentative explanation for the higher frequencies of epsilon*4 and epsilon*5 alleles was sought in relation to the lifestyle and ethnicity of the two populations. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc
Allele and haplotype frequency distribution of the EcoRI, RsaI, and MspI COL1A2 RFLPs among various human populations
No full textThe EcoRI, RsaI, and MspI RFLPs (restriction fragment length polymorphisms) of the COL1A2 gene, one of the two genes that encode for the polypeptides of type I collagen, have been studied in four West African and two Asian populations to evaluate their potential effectiveness as anthropological markers. All three RFLPs were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The comparisons between present data on two of the major human groups and those on Europeans and Amerindians show a considerable heterogeneity for each of the three RFLPs under study. EcoRI, in particular, appears to be highly effective in distinguishing Africans, Europeans, and Asians from each other. As expected, the analysis at the haplotype level considerably improves the discriminating efficiency of these three markers by creating a clear-cut distinction between Tharus and Indonesians, the two Asian populations of the present survey. In fact, even though these two populations exhibit the same frequencies for the RsaI and MspI alleles, the frequency of the MspI(-) allele among the RsaI(-) chromosomes is 0.5 +/- 0.14 in the Indonesian sample and 0 + 0.04 in the Tharu sample
Distribution of the Sand C Hemoglobins in Atakora District (Benin)
No full textThe frequencies of Beta S and Beta C hemoglobin genes were determined by elec¬trophoresis in 2010 subjects born and living in four towns and two villages of Atakora district (Benin).
A high frequency of the Beta C allele and a relatively low frequency of the Beta S allele were found.
These data are discussed in respect to their bearing on the ideas that the peoples of North Benin belong ethnically to the Voltaic people
Marriage distances among the Afro-Americans of bluefields, Nicaragua
No full textIn a sample of 311 couples from the Afroamerican community of Bluefields, Eastern Nicaragua, the distribution of matrimonial distance shows a deviation from the leptokurtic rule. This results from assortative mating among the population
- …
