Skip Navigation



MBE Advance Access published online on March 5, 2003
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msg013
Molecular Biology and Evolution © Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution 2003; all rights reserved
This Article
Right arrow Advance Access manuscript (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
20/3/307    most recent
msg013v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Gilad, Y.
Right arrow Articles by Lancet, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Gilad, Y.
Right arrow Articles by Lancet, D.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Accepted September 16, 2002
© 2003 Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution

Original Articles

Population Differences in the Human Functional Olfactory Repertoire

Yoav Gilad 1* Doron Lancet 1*

1 Department of Molecular Genetics and the Crown Human Genome Center, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: yoav.gilad{at}weizmann.ac.il.


  Abstract

Olfactory receptors (OR) constitute the molecular basis for the sense of smell. They are encoded by a large multigene family, that in humans includes ~400 functional genes and ~600 putative pseudogenes, distributed on all but two chromosomes. To examine the ethnogeographic variability in the functional chemosensory repertoire, we resequenced 32 OR loci reported to contain a single coding region disruption, in seven Caucasians and seven Pygmies. Thirteen of the 32 OR loci were found to have an interrupted coding region in all 28 alleles sampled, seven had an intact form in all the individuals examined, while twelve were polymorphic, segregating both the intact and null variants. Among the latter loci, the frequency of the null allele was higher in Caucasians than in Pygmies, suggesting that African populations may have a larger repertoire of functional OR genes. Interestingly, when analyzing the entire OR coding regions, we find an excess of high frequency, derived alleles at many loci in the Caucasian sample but less so in the Pygmy sample. Our observations are unlikely to be accounted for by simple demographic models, but might be explained by positive selection acting on OR loci in Caucasians.

Key Words: Olfactory Receptors, positive selection


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J HeredHome page
S. Tacher, P. Quignon, M. Rimbault, S. Dreano, C. Andre, and F. Galibert
Olfactory Receptor Sequence Polymorphism Within and Between Breeds of Dogs
J. Hered., November 1, 2005; 96(7): 812 - 816.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.