Genomics Inform.  2014 Mar;12(1):42-47. 10.5808/GI.2014.12.1.42.

Identification of Ethnically Specific Genetic Variations in Pan-Asian Ethnos

• Yang JO
• Hwang S
• Kim WY
• Park SJ
• Kim SC
• Park K
• Lee B
• The HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium

• KMID: 1708247
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5808/GI.2014.12.1.42

Abstract

Asian populations contain a variety of ethnic groups that have ethnically specific genetic differences. Ethnic variants may be highly relevant in disease and human differentiation studies. Here, we identified ethnically specific variants and then investigated their distribution across Asian ethnic groups. We obtained 58,960 Pan-Asian single nucleotide polymorphisms of 1,953 individuals from 72 ethnic groups of 11 Asian countries. We selected 9,306 ethnic variant single nucleotide polymorphisms (ESNPs) and 5,167 ethnic variant copy number polymorphisms (ECNPs) using the nearest shrunken centroid method. We analyzed ESNPs and ECNPs in 3 hierarchical levels: superpopulation, subpopulation, and ethnic population. We also identified ESNP- and ECNP-related genes and their features. This study represents the first attempt to identify Asian ESNP and ECNP markers, which can be used to identify genetic differences and predict disease susceptibility and drug effectiveness in Asian ethnic populations.

Keyword

classification; DNA copy number variations; ethnic groups; genotype; single nucleotide polymorphism

MeSH Terms

Asian Continental Ancestry Group
Classification
Disease Susceptibility
DNA Copy Number Variations
Ethnic Groups
Genetic Variation*
Genotype
Humans
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide