Project description:The genetic structure of the indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples of Southern Africa, the oldest known lineage of modern man, holds an important key to understanding humanity's early history. Previously sequenced human genomes have been limited to recently diverged populations. Here we present the first complete genome sequences of an indigenous hunter-gatherer from the Kalahari Desert and of a Bantu from Southern Africa, as well as protein-coding regions from an additional three hunter-gatherers from disparate regions of the Kalahari. We characterize the extent of whole-genome and exome diversity among the five men, reporting 1.3 million novel DNA differences genome-wide, and 13,146 novel amino-acid variants. These data allow genetic relationships among Southern African foragers and neighboring agriculturalists to be traced more accurately than was previously possible. Adding the described variants to current databases will facilitate inclusion of Southern Africans in medical research efforts.
Project description:The shift from a hunter-gatherer (HG) to an agricultural (AG) mode of subsistence is believed to have been associated with profound changes in the burden and diversity of pathogens across human populations. Yet, the extent to which the advent of agriculture impacted the evolution of the human immune system remains unknown. Here we present a comparative study of variation in the transcriptional responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to bacterial and viral stimuli between the Batwa, a rainforest hunter-gatherer, and the Bakiga, an agriculturalist population from Central Africa. We observed increased divergence between hunter-gatherers and farmers in the transcriptional response to viruses compared to that for bacterial stimuli. We demonstrate that a significant fraction of these transcriptional differences are under genetic control, and we show that positive natural selection has helped to shape population differences in immune regulation. Unexpectedly, we found stronger signatures of recent natural selection in the rainforest hunter-gatherers, which argues against the popularized notion that shifts in pathogen exposure due to the advent of agriculture imposed radically heightened selective pressures in agriculturalist populations.
Project description:The genetic structure of the indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples of Southern Africa, the oldest known lineage of modern man, holds an important key to understanding humanity's early history. Previously sequenced human genomes have been limited to recently diverged populations. Here we present the first complete genome sequences of an indigenous hunter-gatherer from the Kalahari Desert and of a Bantu from Southern Africa, as well as protein-coding regions from an additional three hunter-gatherers from disparate regions of the Kalahari. We characterize the extent of whole-genome and exome diversity among the five men, reporting 1.3 million novel DNA differences genome-wide, and 13,146 novel amino-acid variants. These data allow genetic relationships among Southern African foragers and neighboring agriculturalists to be traced more accurately than was previously possible. Adding the described variants to current databases will facilitate inclusion of Southern Africans in medical research efforts. Copy number differences between NA18507 and KB1 were predicted from the depth of whole-genome shotgun sequence reads. These predictions were then validated using array-CGH using a a genome-wide design as well as a custom design targeted at specific regions of copy number difference
Project description:Archaeological and archaeogenetic evidence points to the Pontic-Caspian steppe zone between the Caucasus and the Black Sea as the crucible from which the earliest steppe pastoralist societies arose and spread, ultimately influencing populations from Europe to Inner Asia. However, little is known about their economic foundations and the factors that may have contributed to their extensive mobility. Here we investigate the dental calculus proteomes of 45 individuals spanning the Neolithic to Greco-Roman periods in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe and neighboring South Caucasus, Oka-Volga-Don, and East Urals regions.
Project description:Linguistic and cultural evidence suggests that Madagascar was the final point of two major dispersals of Austronesian and Bantu speaking populations. Today, Mikea are described as the last known Malagasy population reported to be still practising a hunter-gatherer life-style. It is unclear, however, whether Mikea descend from a remnant population that existed before the arrival of Austronesian and Bantu agriculturalists or whether it is only their life-style that separates them from the other contemporary populations of South Madagascar. In order to address these questions we have performed a genome wide analysis of >700,000 SNP markers on 21 Mikea, 24 Vezo and 24 Temoro individuals together with 50 individuals from Bajo and Lebbo populations from Indonesia. Our analyses of these data in the context of data available from other Southeast Asian and African populations reveal that all three Malagasy populations are derived from the same admixture event involving Austronesian and Bantu sources. In contrast to the fact that most of the vocabulary of the Malagasy speakers is derived from the Barito group of the Austronesian language family we observe that only one third of their genetic ancestry is related to the populations of Java-Kalimantan-Sulawesi area. Because no additional ancestry components distinctive to for the Mikea were found, it is likely that they have adopted their hunter-gatherer way of life by through cultural reversion.
Project description:Linguistic and cultural evidence suggests that Madagascar was the final point of two major dispersals of Austronesian and Bantu speaking populations. Today, Mikea are described as the last known Malagasy population reported to be still practising a hunter-gatherer life-style. It is unclear, however, whether Mikea descend from a remnant population that existed before the arrival of Austronesian and Bantu agriculturalists or whether it is only their life-style that separates them from the other contemporary populations of South Madagascar. In order to address these questions we have performed a genome wide analysis of >700,000 SNP markers on 21 Mikea, 24 Vezo and 24 Temoro individuals together with 50 individuals from Bajo and Lebbo populations from Indonesia. Our analyses of these data in the context of data available from other Southeast Asian and African populations reveal that all three Malagasy populations are derived from the same admixture event involving Austronesian and Bantu sources. In contrast to the fact that most of the vocabulary of the Malagasy speakers is derived from the Barito group of the Austronesian language family we observe that only one third of their genetic ancestry is related to the populations of Java-Kalimantan-Sulawesi area. Because no additional ancestry components distinctive to for the Mikea were found, it is likely that they have adopted their hunter-gatherer way of life by through cultural reversion. 69 samples were analysed with the Illumina platform OmniExpress BeadChips and are described herein.