Adaptation to infectious disease exposure in indigenous Southern African populations.

ABSTRACT: Genetic analyses can provide information about human evolutionary history that cannot always be gleaned from other sources. We evaluated evidence of selective pressure due to introduced infectious diseases in the genomes of two indigenous southern African San groups-the ‡Khomani who had abundant contact with other people migrating into the region and the more isolated Ju|'hoansi. We used a dual approach to test for increased selection on immune genes compared with the rest of the genome in these groups. First, we calculated summary values of statistics that measure genomic signatures of adaptation to contrast selection signatures in immune genes and all genes. Second, we located regions of the genome with extreme values of three selection statistics and examined these regions for enrichmen

SUBMITTER: Owers KA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5394675 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature