Demographic history and adaptation account for clock gene diversity in humans.

ABSTRACT: Circadian clocks give rise to daily oscillations in behavior and physiological functions that often anticipate upcoming environmental changes generated by the Earth rotation. In model organisms a relationship exists between several genes affecting the circadian rhythms and latitude. We investigated the allele distributions at 116 000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of 25 human clock and clock-related genes from the 1000Genomes Project, and at a reference data set of putatively neutral polymorphisms. The global genetic structure at the clock genes did not differ from that observed at the reference data set. We then tested for evidence of local adaptation searching for FST outliers under both an island and a hierarchical model, and for significant association between allele frequencie

SUBMITTER: Dall'Ara I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4981684 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature