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Review: A global reference for human genetic variation


The 1000 Genomes Project


Article Link
Human Genome Project

Figure borrowed from: Genetic Literacy Project    

Background

The 1000 genomes project initial phase begun in 1990 as part of an international collaboration of researchers from Germany, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. By sequencing the genome of 1000 people, this project produced an “extensive catalog of human genetic variation.” The Human Genome Project had great success with data generation, storage, and analysis. With this data we have already advanced understanding of disease biology and the processes that shape genetic diversity. Part of the 1000 genomes project included the production of a series of tutorial videos to provide guidance to  researchers who want to  access the project's data. Although the official 1000 genomes project is finished, publicly accessible data in combination with current research could continue to provide solutions to genetic human diseases.   

Evaluation of project

I really enjoyed the content of this paper. For the most part, the writing was clear and did not have extraneous jargon. The authors did a fantastic job of covering an enormous amount of information in just 6 pages. However, because this paper references 13 supplemental and 124 of extended information pages, it's often difficult to fully interpret and establish the same conclusions that the authors make without spending long periods of time searching for the supplemental figures. One figure that would have been beneficial to include (the first figure posted below on this page) shows the descriptions as well as letter and color code for all 26 sampled populations. In each figure, the code and color of each population is held constant, and its a critical aspect to analyzing the presented data. If this supplemental figure was included, it would make it easier for readers to follow patterns.
One of the main factors I appreciate about this article, is the clear acknowledgment of previous genetic bias in genetic studies and the conscious effort this group made to sample people from across the world. However, given that the human reference genome is primarily composed of people with European ancestry, other groups will always appear to have a greater degree of variance. For example, if the human reference genome was primarily composed of people with African ancestry, Figure 1B would look the opposite to what it does now. African groups would have the least variation, and those of European groups would have the most variation.
Overall, I predict that the information presented in this article will be the basis of extensive work for years to come. Establishing a way to determine the phenotype of all variants in all humans which can lead to a more comprehensive way to look at personalized medicine. Since this group has collected and processed information from 26 populations, this approach will not only look at a person's ancestry and determine a European, Asian, or African drug, but instead will be able to determine the exact medication a single person and their exact genetic markers need.

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Explanation of Figures

Supplemental Figure

26 populations

Supplemental Figure 1. Description, letter code, and color code for 26 worldwide populations.  

Article Figures

 Figure 1

Figure 1

A. Twenty-six populations throughout the world were sampled. Each person’s genotype, haplotype and genetic variation was estimated by whole-genome sequencing, targeted exome sequencing, and high-density SNP microarrays. Each pie chart represents one population, and each color within each pie chart represents the variation of that population. Grey indicates continental variation: Variation present in all continents (Dark grey) or variation only across continental areas (light grey). The population specific color represents variation private to population (dark population specific color) or variation private to continental area (light population specific color).  Area of chart is indicative number of polymorphisms within the population.  For all populations, the greatest amount of variation is shared between continents.

B. The number of variant sites (SNPs, indels, and structural variants) in an individuals genome as compared to the human reference genome. Since the human reference genome is primarily composed of European genes, individuals with European ancestry (FIN, GBR, CEU, IBS, TSI) have the fewest variant sites and individuals of African ancestry have the most variant sites per genome.

C.  Singletons (variants observed in only one population) for all populations constitute a very small portion of all variant sites per genome.

 


Figure 2

Figure 2.

A. The proportion of an individuals genome from putative ancestral populations computed using a maximum likelihood approach. Each column represents a human sequence. Ordering of columns is first done by similarity within a population, next populations are ordered by similarity to other populations. Clusters (k=8) reveal the ancestral similarities between populations.

B.    Using the pairwise sequentially Markovian coalescent method, effective population size (Ne) was determined for each population for the last 600 thousand years. All humans shared a demographic history up to about 300 thousand years ago (kya).  About 150,000 years ago, non-African populations experienced a drastic decrease in population size (a bottleneck). African populations also experienced a similar long term bottle neck, but the African effective population size remained larger than that of non-Africans. In the last 60,000 years, most populations have increased in size.  The Bengali in Bangladesh population has experienced the greatest increase in population size.

Figure 3

Figure 3.

A. Variants value on x-axis represents the number of globally rare variants (frequency <0.5%) that are common (frequency>5%) within a population. The Luhya in Webuye, Kenya (LWK) population had the greatest rare variant number, and populations with European ancestry (TSI, IBS, GBR, CEU) had a smaller variant values. Exceptions within continents, such as higher than average European variation in the Finnish in Finland (FIN) population and lower than average variance for People with African Ancestry in Southwest USA (ASW). These findings suggest that a portion of rare variation is exclusive to a single population and not to the continent and may be indicative of drifted variants.

B.  To identify targets of recent localized adaptation, FST- based population branch statistic (PBS) was used. Y-axis represents maximum PBS value which is indicative genes with strong differentiation between populations in the same continent. X –axis represents the maximum number of exonic SNPs in a given gene. Interestingly, some of the one of the most differentiated genes between populations in the same continent include TRBV9 (T-cell receptor) and SLC24A5 which is associated with skin pigmentation. Out of all variants in each population, a shockingly low number of genes exclusively differentiated within a population.

Figure 4


Figure 4.
A. To determine if phase 3 data could aid in inferring unobserved genotypes based on human haplotypes, 9 to 10 individuals from 6 populations were excluded from a reference panel. Researchers imputed genotypes. The correlation between experimental (omitted individuals) and imputed genotypes was determined. As allele frequency increased within a continent, the correlation between experimental and imputed also increased a majority of the time. Phase 3 data can predict genotypes of continental high frequency alternative alleles.

(Bottom left) Due to increased genotype and sequence quality, phase 3 data can better correlate experimental (omitted individuals) and imputed genotypes in all samples and in intersecting samples as long as alleles have high continental frequency.

B. To Determine the average number of tagging variants (individual SNP that represents a larger group of SNPS) needed for common (top), low frequency (middle) or rare (bottom) individual variants in a population. African populations have the lowest number of tagging variants for both common and low frequency variants. In rare variants, Americans and Europeans have the highest number of tagging variants, but across all continental groups, there is at most a 3 tagging variant difference.

C. To determine if fine-mapping genetic association signals could be derived, expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) was used on 69 samples of 6 populations. Percent of indels (darkest color), tied (medium color), and SNPs (light color) are depicted.

D.  Populations were combined and a metadata approach was utilized to determine the percentage of eQTLs in TFBS.


Reference:

The 1000 Genomes Project Consortium. 2015. A global reference for human genetic variation. Nature 526:68-74. Doi:10.1038/nature15393

*** Unless otherwise cited, all figures borrowed from 1000 Genomes Project Consortium ***

                       

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