scholarly journals The impact of recent population history on the deleterious mutation load in humans and close evolutionary relatives

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval B. Simons ◽  
Guy Sella
Keyword(s):  
Demographic History ◽  
Population History ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Loss Of Function ◽  
Mutation Load ◽  
Synonymous Mutations ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Out Of Africa ◽  
The Impact

AbstractOver the past decade, there has been both great interest and confusion about whether recent demographic events—notably the Out-of-Africa-bottleneck and recent population growth—have led to differences in mutation load among human populations. The confusion can be traced to the use of different summary statistics to measure load, which lead to apparently conflicting results. We argue, however, that when statistics more directly related to load are used, the results of different studies and data sets consistently reveal little or no difference in the load of non-synonymous mutations among human populations. Theory helps to understand why no such differences are seen, as well as to predict in what settings they are to be expected. In particular, as predicted by modeling, there is evidence for changes in the load of recessive loss of function mutations in founder and inbred human populations. Also as predicted, eastern subspecies of gorilla, Neanderthals and Denisovans, who are thought to have undergone reductions in population sizes that exceed the human Out-of-Africa bottleneck in duration and severity, show evidence for increased load of non-synonymous mutations (relative to western subspecies of gorillas and modern humans, respectively). A coherent picture is thus starting to emerge about the effects of demographic history on the mutation load in populations of humans and close evolutionary relatives.

scholarly journals Cultural Innovations Influence Patterns of Genetic Diversity in Northwestern Amazonia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Arias ◽  
Roland Schröder ◽  
Alexander Hübner ◽  
Guillermo Barreto ◽  
Mark Stoneking ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
Native American ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Population History ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACTHuman populations often exhibit contrasting patterns of genetic diversity in the mtDNA and the non-recombining portion of the Y-chromosome (NRY), which reflect sex-specific cultural behaviors and population histories. Here, we sequenced 2.3 Mb of the NRY from 284 individuals representing more than 30 Native-American groups from Northwestern Amazonia (NWA) and compared these data to previously generated mtDNA genomes from the same groups, to investigate the impact of cultural practices on genetic diversity and gain new insights about NWA population history. Relevant cultural practices in NWA include postmarital residential rules and linguistic-exogamy, a marital practice in which men are required to marry women speaking a different language.We identified 2,969 SNPs in the NRY sequences; only 925 SNPs were previously described. The NRY and mtDNA data showed that males and females experienced different demographic histories: the female effective population size has been larger than that of males through time, and both markers show an increase in lineage diversification beginning ~5,000 years ago, with a male-specific expansion occurring ~3,500 years ago. These dates are too recent to be associated with agriculture, therefore we propose that they reflect technological innovations and the expansion of regional trade networks documented in the archaeological evidence. Furthermore, our study provides evidence of the impact of postmarital residence rules and linguistic exogamy on genetic diversity patterns. Finally, we highlight the importance of analyzing high-resolution mtDNA and NRY sequences to reconstruct demographic history, since this can differ considerably between males and females.

scholarly journals Similarities and differences between IL11 and IL11RA1 knockout mice for lung fibro-inflammation, fertility and craniosynostosis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ng ◽  
Anissa A. Widjaja ◽  
Sivakumar Viswanathan ◽  
Jinrui Dong ◽  
Sonia P. Chothani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Knockout Mice ◽  
Lung Fibroblasts ◽  
Loss Of Function ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Reduced Body ◽  
Body Weights ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Impact

AbstractGenetic loss of function (LOF) in IL11RA infers IL11 signaling as important for fertility, fibrosis, inflammation and craniosynostosis. The impact of genetic LOF in IL11 has not been characterized. We generated IL11-knockout (Il11-/-) mice, which are born in normal Mendelian ratios, have normal hematological profiles and are protected from bleomycin-induced lung fibro-inflammation. Noticeably, baseline IL6 levels in the lungs of Il11-/- mice are lower than those of wild-type mice and are not induced by bleomycin damage, placing IL11 upstream of IL6. Lung fibroblasts from Il11-/- mice are resistant to pro-fibrotic stimulation and show evidence of reduced autocrine IL11 activity. Il11-/- female mice are infertile. Unlike Il11ra1-/- mice, Il11-/- mice do not have a craniosynostosis-like phenotype and exhibit mildly reduced body weights. These data highlight similarities and differences between LOF in IL11 or IL11RA while establishing further the role of IL11 signaling in fibrosis and stromal inflammation.

scholarly journals The mixed genetic origin of the first farmers of Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Marchi ◽  
Laura Winkelbach ◽  
Ilektra Schulz ◽  
Maxime Brami ◽  
Zuzana Hofmanová ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Genomics ◽  
Near East ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
Genetic Origins ◽  
Early Farmers ◽  
The Impact

SummaryWhile the Neolithic expansion in Europe is well described archaeologically, the genetic origins of European first farmers and their affinities with local hunter-gatherers (HGs) remain unclear. To infer the demographic history of these populations, the genomes of 15 ancient individuals located between Western Anatolia and Southern Germany were sequenced to high quality, allowing us to perform population genomics analyses formerly restricted to modern genomes. We find that all European and Anatolian early farmers descend from the merging of a European and a Near Eastern group of HGs, possibly in the Near East, shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Western and Southeastern European HG are shown to split during the LGM, and share signals of a very strong LGM bottleneck that drastically reduced their genetic diversity. Early Neolithic Central Anatolians seem only indirectly related to ancestors of European farmers, who probably originated in the Near East and dispersed later on from the Aegean along the Danubian corridor following a stepwise demic process with only limited (2-6%) but additive input from local HGs.Our analyses provide a time frame and resolve the genetic origins of early European farmers. They highlight the impact of Late Pleistocene climatic fluctuations that caused the fragmentation, merging and reexpansion of human populations in SW Asia and Europe, and eventually led to the world's first agricultural populations.

scholarly journals Large-scale analysis of SARS-CoV-2 spike-glycoprotein mutants demonstrates the need for continuous screening of virus isolates

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0249254
Author(s):  
Barbara Schrörs ◽  
Pablo Riesgo-Ferreiro ◽  
Patrick Sorn ◽  
Ranganath Gudimella ◽  
Thomas Bukur ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mutation Rate ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Median Number ◽  
Spike Protein ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Spike Glycoprotein ◽  
Synonymous Mutations ◽  
Different Strains ◽  
Genome Assemblies

Due to the widespread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SARS-CoV-2 genome is evolving in diverse human populations. Several studies already reported different strains and an increase in the mutation rate. Particularly, mutations in SARS-CoV-2 spike-glycoprotein are of great interest as it mediates infection in human and recently approved mRNA vaccines are designed to induce immune responses against it. We analyzed 1,036,030 SARS-CoV-2 genome assemblies and 30,806 NGS datasets from GISAID and European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) focusing on non-synonymous mutations in the spike protein. Only around 2.5% of the samples contained the wild-type spike protein with no variation from the reference. Among the spike protein mutants, we confirmed a low mutation rate exhibiting less than 10 non-synonymous mutations in 99.6% of the analyzed sequences, but the mean and median number of spike protein mutations per sample increased over time. 5,472 distinct variants were found in total. The majority of the observed variants were recurrent, but only 21 and 14 recurrent variants were found in at least 1% of the mutant genome assemblies and NGS samples, respectively. Further, we found high-confidence subclonal variants in about 2.6% of the NGS data sets with mutant spike protein, which might indicate co-infection with various SARS-CoV-2 strains and/or intra-host evolution. Lastly, some variants might have an effect on antibody binding or T-cell recognition. These findings demonstrate the continuous importance of monitoring SARS-CoV-2 sequences for an early detection of variants that require adaptations in preventive and therapeutic strategies.

scholarly journals Re-introducing the Cambridge Group Family Reconstitutions

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 24-48
Author(s):  
George Alter ◽  
Gill Newton ◽  
Jim Oeppen
Keyword(s):  
Demographic History ◽  
Population History ◽  
Intermediate Data ◽  
The Family ◽  
English Population ◽  
Family Reconstitution ◽  
Fertility Analysis ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Impact

English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580–1837 was important both for its scope and its methodology. The volume was based on data from family reconstitutions of 26 parishes carefully selected to represent 250 years of English demographic history. These data remain relevant for new research questions, such as studying the intergenerational inheritance of fertility and mortality. To expand their availability the family reconstitutions have been translated into new formats: a relational database, the Intermediate Data Structure (IDS) and an episode file for fertility analysis. This paper describes that process and examines the impact of methodological decisions on analysis of the data. Wrigley, Davies, Oeppen, and Schofield were sensitive to changes in the quality of the parish registers and cautiously applied the principles of family reconstitution developed by Louis Henry. We examine how these choices affect the measurement of fertility and biases that are introduced when important principles are ignored.

scholarly journals ARGON: Fast, Whole-Genome Simulation of the Discrete Time Wright-Fisher Process

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pier Francesco Palamara
Keyword(s):  
Discrete Time ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Recombination Rates ◽  
Coalescent Model ◽  
Fisher Model

AbstractMotivationSimulation under the coalescent model is ubiquitous in the analysis of genetic data. The rapid growth of real data sets from multiple human populations led to increasing interest in simulating very large sample sizes at whole-chromosome scales. When the sample size is large, the coalescent model becomes an increasingly inaccurate approximation of the discrete time Wright-Fisher model (DTWF). Analytical and computational treatment of the DTWF, however, is generally harder.ResultsWe present a simulator (ARGON) for the DTWF process that scales up to hundreds of thousands of samples and whole-chromosome lengths, with a time/memory performance comparable or superior to currently available methods for coalescent simulation. The simulator supports arbitrary demographic history, migration, Newick tree output, variable mutation/recombination rates and gene conversion, and efficiently outputs pairwise identical-bydescent (IBD) sharing data.AvailabilityARGON (version 0.1) is written in Java, open source, and freely available at https://github.com/pierpal/[email protected] informationSupplementary data are available online.

scholarly journals Fine-scale population structure and demographic history of British Pakistanis

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Arciero ◽  
Sufyan A. Dogra ◽  
Daniel S. Malawsky ◽  
Massimo Mezzavilla ◽  
Theofanis Tsismentzoglou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Structure ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Population History ◽  
Genomic Diversity ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
Scale Population ◽  
The Impact ◽  
British Pakistanis

AbstractPrevious genetic and public health research in the Pakistani population has focused on the role of consanguinity in increasing recessive disease risk, but little is known about its recent population history or the effects of endogamy. Here, we investigate fine-scale population structure, history and consanguinity patterns using genotype chip data from 2,200 British Pakistanis. We reveal strong recent population structure driven by the biraderi social stratification system. We find that all subgroups have had low recent effective population sizes (Ne), with some showing a decrease 15‒20 generations ago that has resulted in extensive identity-by-descent sharing and homozygosity, increasing the risk of recessive disorders. Our results from two orthogonal methods (one using machine learning and the other coalescent-based) suggest that the detailed reporting of parental relatedness for mothers in the cohort under-represents the true levels of consanguinity. These results demonstrate the impact of cultural practices on population structure and genomic diversity in Pakistanis, and have important implications for medical genetic studies.

scholarly journals Demographic history and admixture dynamics in African Sahelian populations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktor Černý ◽  
Cesar Fortes-Lima ◽  
Petr Tříska
Keyword(s):  
Demographic History ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
African Region ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Genomic Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The Sahel/Savannah belt of Africa is a contact zone between two subsistence systems (nomadic pastoralism and sedentary farming) and of two groups of populations, namely Eurasians penetrating from northern Africa southwards and sub-Saharan Africans migrating northwards. Because pastoralism is characterised by a high degree of mobility, it leaves few significant archaeological traces. Demographic history seen through the lens of population genetic studies complements our historical and archaeological knowledge in this African region. In this review, we highlight recent advances in our understanding of demographic history in the Sahel/Savannah belt as revealed by genetic studies. We show the impact of food-producing subsistence strategies on population structure as well as the somewhat different migration patterns in the western and eastern part of the region. Genomic studies show that the gene pool of various groups of Sahelians consists in a complex mosaic of several ancestries. We also touch upon various signals of genetic adaptations such as lactase persistence, taste sensitivity, and malaria resistance, all of which have different distribution patterns among Sahelian populations. Overall, genetic studies contribute to gain a deeper understanding about the demographic and adaptive history of human populations in this specific African region and beyond.

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