Autosomal DNA Polymorphisms of Four South India Tribal Populations

Background: The entry and dispersal of modern humans is India of remains unclear and extending with many interesting evidences South India, assumed to be a major corridor for their with many ancient genetic deposits such as Dravidian tribal with Negrito features. As the relationships between the genetic polymorphs and diseases in human being revealed globally, it is worthy to investigate the genomic architecture of population in south India. Objective: To examine what evolutionary forces have most significantly impacted south Indian tribal genetic variation, and to test whether the phenotypic similarities of some south Indian tribal groups to Africans represent a signature of close relationship to Africans or are due to convergence. Methods: Blood samples from 193 unrelated individuals of both sexes are drawn from the Dravidian tribal settlements of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. South India are genotyped for four Aluindel (Alu FXIIIB, Alu ACE, AluTA25 and Alu PLAT) allele profile by PCR genotyping method. Results: All loci are highly polymorphic and average heterozygositiesare substantial (range: 0.37-0.44). Genetic differentiation is high (Gst = 3.7%) in all the study populations.