The theory of genetic distance and evolution of human races
The Japanese Journal of Human GeneticsPublished 1 December 1978Open access
Masatoshi Nei
Citations169
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TL;DR
Application of the theory of genetic distance to data on protein polymorphism in man indicates that the genetic variation between the three major races, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid, is much smaller than the variation within them, despite the fact that there is a conspicuous difference in some morphological characters.
Abstract
1. Theoretical works on Nei's genetic distance and its extensions are discussed.New formulae for the sampling variances of genetic distance estimates are presented.Formulae for the genetic identity of genes at the electrophoretic level when the mutation rate varies from locus to locus are also presented.2. Empirical data suggests that the rate of gene substitution or mutation rate per locus varies considerably among protein loci, and if this factor is taken into account, the rate of decline of genetic identity (I) is no longer constant but decreases with evolutionary time.Using both the infiniteallele model and the stepwise mutation model, the numerical relationship between I and evolutionary time is presented.This relationship may be used for estimating the time after divergence between populations.The value of genetic distance or genetic identity is also affected considerably by the bottleneck effect.The bottleneck effect generally accelerates the increase of genetic distance with time, and the effect remains for a long time after the population size returns to the original level.A method for correcting for this effect is presented.3. Application of the theory of genetic distance to data on protein polymorphism in man indicates that the genetic variation between the three major races, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid, is much smaller than the variation within them, despite the fact that there is a conspicuous difference in some morphological characters such as pigmentation, facial structure, and hair texture.It is proposed that the differentiation of these morphological characters was brought about by relatively strong natural selection through a small number of gene substitutions, whereas general protein loci are subject to little or very weak selection.Analysis of blood group gene frequency data gives essentially the same result as those from protein loci, though they are likely to have been affected by nonrandom
Keywords
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
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