摘要:Alu insertion polymorphisms are robust markers for human evolutionary studies because they have a unique mutational mechanism, with a known ancestral state.
On a data base of gene frequencies for 8 Alu insertions in 47 populations of different continents, a discriminant analysis has been performed, with the aim of evaluating the capacity of these markers to classify populations and consequently to estimate the degree of admixture of hybrid populations. For the 6 established regions, a percentage of correct classification of 91.5% has been obtained, allowing to distinguish reasonably well between populations of Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and Middle East, Europe, India and Central Asia, East Asia and America. The utility of the Alu insertions is confirmed therefore for the admixture studies.