Microarrays Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Microarrays, including details on experiments, designs, statistics, analysis, software.

Measuring European population stratification with microarray genotype data.

Bauchet M, McEvoy B, Pearson LN, Quillen EE, Sarkisian T, Hovhannesyan K, Deka R, Bradley DG, Shriver MD

Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16801, USA. marcb@psu.edu

A proper understanding of population genetic stratification--differences in individual ancestry within a population--is crucial in attempts to find genes for complex traits through association mapping. We report on genomewide typing of approximately 10,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 297 individuals, to explore population structure in Europeans of known and unknown ancestry. The results reveal the presence of several significant axes of stratification, most prominently in a northern-southeastern trend, but also along an east-west axis. We also demonstrate the selection and application of EuroAIMs (European ancestry informative markers) for ancestry estimation and correction. The Coriell Caucasian and CEPH (Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme Humain) Utah sample panels, often used as proxies for European populations, are found to reflect different subsets of the continent's ancestry.

Published 16 April 2007 in Am J Hum Genet, 80(5): 948-56.
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