Human Evolutionary Tree based on 182 microsatellites

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 122:259–268 (2003)

Reconstruction of Human Evolutionary Tree Using
Polymorphic Autosomal Microsatellites

Qasim Ayub et al.

ABSTRACT Allelic frequencies of 182 tri- and tetra-autosomal
microsatellites were used to examine phylogenetic
relationships among 19 extant human populations.
In particular, because the languages of the Basques and
Hunza Burusho have been suggested to have an ancient
relationship, this study sought to explore the genetic relationship
between these two major language isolate populations
and to compare them with other human populations.
The work presented here shows that the
microsatellite allelic diversity and the number of unique
alleles were highest in sub-Saharan Africans. Neighbor-joining
trees based on genetic distances and principal
component analyses separated populations from different
continents, and are consistent with an African origin for
modern humans. For the first time, with biparentally
transmitted markers, the microsatellite tree also shows
that the San are the first branch of the human tree before
the branch leading to all other Africans. In contrast to an
earlier study, these results provided no evidence of a genetic
relationship among the two language isolate groups.
Genetic relationships, as ascertained by these microsatellites,
are dictated primarily by geographic proximity
rather than by remote linguistic origin, Mantel test, R0 =
0.484, g = 3.802 (critical g value = 1.645; P = 0.05).

Neighbor-Joining Tree

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Posted by Dienekes at October 14, 2003 11:24 PM | PermaLink