%0 Journal Article
%T Different level of population differentiation among human genes
%A Dong-Dong Wu
%A Ya-Ping Zhang
%J BMC Evolutionary Biology
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2148-11-16
%X Here, we study the level of population differentiation among different populations of human genes. Intriguingly, genes involved in osteoblast development were identified as being enriched with higher FST SNPs, a result consistent with the proposed role of the skeletal system in accounting for variation among human populations. Genes involved in the development of hair follicles, where hair is produced, were also found to have higher levels of population differentiation, consistent with hair morphology being a distinctive trait among human populations. Other genes that showed higher levels of population differentiation include those involved in pigmentation, spermatid, nervous system and organ development, and some metabolic pathways, but few involved with the immune system. Disease-related genes demonstrate excessive SNPs with lower levels of population differentiation, probably due to purifying selection. Surprisingly, we find that Mendelian-disease genes appear to have a significant excessive of SNPs with high levels of population differentiation, possibly because the incidence and susceptibility of these diseases show differences among populations. As expected, microRNA regulated genes show lower levels of population differentiation due to purifying selection.Our analysis demonstrates different level of population differentiation among human populations for different gene groups.After dispersal from Africa, humans have evolved to be characterized by substantial phenotypic variation, including variation in skin, hair, and eye color, body mass, height, diet, drug metabolism, susceptibility and resistance to disease, during the colonization of the World. Efforts to reveal the genetic bases of these variations should provide important insight into the history of human evolution, gene function, and the mechanisms of disease [1,2]. Indeed, with the advent of large scale comparative genomic and human polymorphism data, a flood of studies have identified many candidate g
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/11/16