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:Copy number variations (CNVs) constitute the largest portion of the human genome variation. We determined a genome-wide high resolution SNP/CNV haplotype structure of Asians, by analyzing a collection of complete hydatidiform moles (CHMs) of Japanese, using high-density DNA arrays. CHMs are tissues carrying duplicated haploid genomes derived from single sperms, and are suitable material for the detection of CNVs, because they are expected to reveal greater signal to noise ratio in hybridization experiments. Also, the absence of heterozygosity ensures straightforward CNV interpretation without being bothered by overlapping CNV segments. We genotyped 100 CHM genomes using Affymetrix SNP 6.0 and Illumina 1M-duo, created a definitive haplotype map including 1.7 million SNPs and 2339 CNV region (CNVR) that is presented as D-HaploDB Phase 4.1.
