Data on human Genes undergoing recent positive selection?

Question

The recent discovery of 2 human genes that affect brain development (origions appear to be in the ME about 37,000 & 6000 yrs ago) are absent in West Africa & it has been suggested that the heavy positive selection for these genes shows they contribute some large advantage to the people in Asia & Europe that have one or both of these genes. I am looking for information on births among West Africans to determine if either of these genes is responsible for either low birth weights or mortality rates among mothers.
Regardless of what these genes do... they do offer some advantage to those that inherit them, but what advantage is still open to debate & must be researched.
Some links are:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5823/3706
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2005/09/aspm-and-mcph1-big-trouble-from-two.html

Coop 366:
Go for it, happy fishing.

Sentrynnox:
Interesting reading & one might be able to work this into a hypothesis as to why a gene mutation did occur in that period, but it is still unclear as to what advantage the ASPM or MCPH1 gene mutation offered the people migrating out of the ME to give it an 85% selection rate amonng Europeans in one case & a 70% selection World wide in the other case. I "suspect" the gene did not migrate back to Africa to any degree because the migration flow was to Europe & Asia. However these genes must have offered some large advantage to have been so heavily selected these few 1000s of years.

I didn't get answers that addressed this issue, but information on these genes is sparse, as are genetic researchers on yahoo. Because these genes have experienced such a high evolutionary selection, some think they have something to do with birth & infant/mother mortality rates.

I didn't get answers that addressed this issue, but information on these genes is sparse, as are genetic researchers on yahoo. Because these genes have experienced such a high evolutionary selection, some think they have something to do with birth & infant/mother mortality rates.

I didn't get answers that addressed this issue, but information on these genes is sparse, as are genetic researchers on yahoo. Because these genes have experienced such a high evolutionary selection, some think they have something to do with birth & infant/mother mortality rates.

Answer 1

From what you say in your additional details, success during birth does sound like a credible selective pressure, especially in prehistoric times like 37,000 ya. Obviously mother and infant mortality would have been much higher in those times and anything that may have alleviated this from taking place would be heavily selected for. I'm sorry that I was not able to bring you any of the data that you are looking for, but to me it sounds like you are on the right track.

Also, I didn't read anything about mother or infant mortality rates in your articles concerning these genes. Do you have a link to those articles because I wouldn’t mind learning a bit more about that aspect of these gene's expression. Maybe if I knew a bit more about the idea my searches might be a bit more successful?

Answer 2

I am not sure about the genes and positive selection you are looking for, but I do know that since then end of the Genome project, it has been found that over 41% of our DNA, was coming from a viral source (Dr. Shiva Singh).
So it may indicate that your gene mutation has almost 1 chance on 2, to come from a pathogen agents of some sort. So in your place I would look for this...
As for the advantages given by the first mutation (37000) years ago, it could be related to an exposure to Beryllium-10 radio-isotope caused by the explosion of a supernova close to our solar system. The carrot samples taken from Vostok, indicate an occurence date of around 35000 y-ago, which is about the same as your finding suggest (10Be in ice ~35 kyr old from the Vostok ice core, some 20 years ago (Nature, 326, 273, 1987). If you need more information about this, I suggest you contact Grant Raisbeck.

Answer 3

Maybe there are three different races as I said. The South American Indians migrated across the land bridge into Asia and Europe, then into Africa. That is one way it could happen. Another is the Atlantean theory. So many ideas and so little time. Happy hunting, I'm going fishing.