Human population relationships from genome scans

Worldwide Human Relationships Inferred from Genome-Wide Patterns of Variation -- Li et al. 319 (5866): 1100 -- Science

Science 22 February 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5866, pp. 1100 - 1104
DOI:10.1126/science.1153717

Reports
Worldwide Human Relationships Inferred from Genome-Wide Patterns of Variation
Jun Z. Li,1,2*{dagger} Devin M. Absher,1,2* Hua Tang,1 Audrey M. Southwick,1,2 Amanda M. Casto,1 Sohini Ramachandran,4 Howard M. Cann,5 Gregory S. Barsh,1,3 Marcus Feldman,4{ddagger} Luigi L. Cavalli-Sforza,1{ddagger} Richard M. Myers1,2{ddagger}

Human genetic diversity is shaped by both demographic and biological factors and has fundamental implications for understanding the genetic basis of diseases. We studied 938 unrelated individuals from 51 populations of the Human Genome Diversity Panel at 650,000 common single-nucleotide polymorphism loci. Individual ancestry and population substructure were detectable with very high resolution. The relationship between haplotype heterozygosity and geography was consistent with the hypothesis of a serial founder effect with a single origin in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, we observed a pattern of ancestral allele frequency distributions that reflects variation in population dynamics among geographic regions. This data set allows the most comprehensive characterization to date of human genetic variation.