Abstract
Spatial patterns of allele frequencies reveal a clear signal of natural (or sexual) selection on human height. The average frequency of 66 common genetic variants for 26 populations belonging to 5 sub-continental human groups was significantly correlated to average phenotypic population height. The method of correlated vectors provided additional evidence for a signal of natural selection in SNPs with higher significance. Factor analysis of the five top genome-wide association study (GWAS) hits revealed a clear factor indicating selection pressures on human height, peaking among northern Europeans and some African groups (Esan Nigeria) whilst reaching a nadir among South-East Asians.
Highlights
IntroductionA recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) (Wood et al, 2014) based on a very large sample (N=250K) identified common variants responsible for normal variation in human height within populations
A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) (Wood et al, 2014) based on a very large sample (N=250K) identified common variants responsible for normal variation in human height within populations.Average population height was obtained from the references listed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height, considering only statistics published after 2000 and young age groups (18–40)
The more genes are involved in a given phenotype, the more the signal of natural selection will be “diluted” across different genomic regions making it difficult to detect it using approaches focused on a single gene (Pritchard et al, 2010; Piffer, 2014)
Summary
A recent GWAS (Wood et al, 2014) based on a very large sample (N=250K) identified common variants responsible for normal variation in human height within populations. Average population height was obtained from the references listed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height, considering only statistics published after 2000 and young age groups (18–40). A first attempt at empirically identifying polygenic selection was made by Turchin et al, (2012) on two populations (Northern and Southern Europeans) and evidence for higher frequency of height increasing alleles (obtained from GWAS studies) among Northern Europeans was provided. A drawback of that study was the reliance on populations from a single continent and that crude pairwise comparisons (e.g. French vs Italian) were used without correlating frequency differences to average population height.
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