Detecting the Paternal Genetic Diversity in West Africa using Y-STRs and Y-SNPs. (December 2015) - Oliveira, Andréa M.
Abstract: The pattern of human variation in Africa is the result of a complex series of demographic events. There are few databases related to the peoples of Africa, especially in western and central regions. In this study, 17 Y-STR and 31 Y-SNP loci were genotyped in a sample from Western Africa, which was compared with other representative populations of other African regions. The haplotype diversity observed in this region was 1.0000 (±0.0018) and that is similar to those values obtained in other African samples already studied. The most frequent haplogroup found in our sample belongs to E, showing the M2 derived allele. The haplogroup diversity was 0.6895 (±0.0200), very similar to that observed in countries where the Bantu groups are predominant (0.681 in Angola; 0.753 in Equatorial Guinea). Concerning the Western Africa, significant differences were observed between Guinea–Bissau and the remaining populations of this region. In addition, there was no significant difference between our sample and samples from Eastern and Central Africa. The genetic composition of the population studied was significantly different from that of Guinea–Bissau, although a genetic homogeneity was found among most countries belonging to West Africa.