These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: In search of polymorphic Alu insertions with restricted geographic distributions.
    Author: Cordaux R, Srikanta D, Lee J, Stoneking M, Batzer MA.
    Journal: Genomics; 2007 Jul; 90(1):154-8. PubMed ID: 17498924.
    Abstract:
    Alu elements are transposable elements that have reached over one million copies in the human genome. Some Alu elements inserted in the genome so recently that they are still polymorphic for insertion presence or absence in human populations. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in using Alu variation for studies of human population genetic structure and inference of individual geographic origin. Currently, this requires a high number of Alu loci. Here, we used a linker-mediated polymerase chain reaction method to preferentially identify low-frequency Alu elements in various human DNA samples with different geographic origins. The candidate Alu loci were subsequently genotyped in 18 worldwide human populations (approximately 370 individuals), resulting in the identification of two new Alu insertions restricted to populations of African ancestry. Our results suggest that it may ultimately become possible to correctly infer the geographic affiliation of unknown samples with high levels of confidence without having to genotype as many as 100 Alu loci. This is desirable if Alu insertion polymorphisms are to be used for human evolution studies or forensic applications.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]