Exploring the evolutionary history of the differentially expressed genes between human populations: action of recent positive selection.

ABSTRACT: Though debates exist on the early human evolutionary models such as the "Out of Africa" theory, which hypothesizes that modern humans migrated from Africa to Europe about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, Africans and Europeans were geographically separated with minimal gene flow for tens of thousands of years. The variations between the current European and African populations, therefore, should have evolved during this timeframe. To gain more insights into the evolutionary history of human phenotypes including gene expression, it is critical to tell how recent positive selection has played a role in the variations observed in the current populations. Using the list of differentially expressed genes we previously identified between the HapMap samples derived from individuals of African (from I

SUBMITTER: Zhang W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2585739 | biostudies-literature | 2008 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature