ArticleGenome biology2019
African evolutionary history inferred from whole genome sequence data of 44 indigenous African populations.
Article in Genome biology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 81 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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81 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 193 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Genetic insights from Parkinson disease in African and African admixed populations.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2026Article
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- A SNP panel for co-analysis of capture and shotgun ancient DNA data.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Methylation reprogramming associated with aggressive prostate cancer and ancestral disparities.Molecular systems biology · 2025Article
- Accounting for gene flow from unsampled ghost populations while estimating evolutionary history.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Characterization of the complex TB pharmacogenomic landscape in Africa using bioinformatic tools.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2025Article
- Strengthening Africa's brain health and economic resilience.Nature medicine · 2025Review
- An exploration of the genetics of the mutant Huntingtin (mHtt) gene in a cohort of patients with chorea from different ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa.Annals of human genetics · 2025Article
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- A previously reported bottleneck in human ancestry 900 kya is likely a statistical artifact.Genetics · 2025Article
- Linguistic capacity was present in theFrontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Deep learning insights into distinct patterns of polygenic adaptation across human populations.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Epidemiologic study on prostate cancer in Sudanese men across African ethnic groups.Scientific reports · 2024Article
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21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
17 authors at 7 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAfrica is the origin of modern humans within the past 300 thousand years. To infer the complex demographic history of African populations and adaptation to diverse environments, we sequenced the genomes of 92 individuals from 44 indigenous African populations.
resultsGenetic structure analyses indicate that among Africans, genetic ancestry is largely partitioned by geography and language, though we observe mixed ancestry in many individuals, consistent with both short- and long-range migration events followed by admixture. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that the San genetic lineage is basal to all modern human lineages. The San and Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic, and Nilo-Saharan lineages were substantially diverged by 160 kya (thousand years ago). In contrast, the San and Central African rainforest hunter-gatherer (CRHG), Hadza hunter-gatherer, and Sandawe hunter-gatherer lineages were diverged by ~ 120-100 kya. Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afroasiatic lineages diverged more recently by ~ 54-16 kya. Eastern and western CRHG lineages diverged by ~ 50-31 kya, and the western CRHG lineages diverged by ~ 18-12 kya. The San and CRHG populations maintained the largest effective population size compared to other populations prior to 60 kya. Further, we observed signatures of positive selection at genes involved in muscle development, bone synthesis, reproduction, immune function, energy metabolism, and cell signaling, which may contribute to local adaptation of African populations.
conclusionsWe observe high levels of genomic variation between ethnically diverse Africans which is largely correlated with geography and language. Our study indicates ancient population substructure and local adaptation of Africans.
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