Genomic diversities and affinities among eight endogamous groups of Haryana (India): A study on insertion/deletion polymorphisms

Abstract

Background: The present study examines genomic variation among eight endogamous groups (Bania, Kamboh, Lobana, Saini, Bishnoi, Sansi, Balmiki and Ramdasia) of Haryana, north-west India.

Aim: The present study examines the eight indel polymorphic loci in the population of Haryana. These loci were further used to compare the genomic diversity of the population in relation to other population groups of India.

Subjects and methods: DNA samples from 580 unrelated individuals belonging to eight endogamous groups were analysed at eight human-specific insertion/deletion polymorphic loci following standard protocols.

Results: All loci, except Alu CD4 and Alu APO, were found to be highly polymorphic. High average heterozygosity values (0.3886 among Kamboh to 0.4276 among Bishnoi) were observed. The overall coefficient of gene differentiation (0.0270) was found to be remarkably close to the Wahlund's variance (0.0258). Comparison with other Indian populations showed that populations of the same geographic region tend to cluster together, irrespective of their social status.

Conclusion: In various endogamous groups of Haryana, the time of divergence seems to be too small to reflect the genetic differences between them. It may be possible that gene flow occurred prior to the sub-division into the present endogamous groups or the present populations might have the same sources of genes resulting in a low level of genetic differentiation. Populations of Haryana were found to be more similar with populations of the neighbouring states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

Keywords::

• Alu
• mt → Nuc
• endogamous groups
• indel
• Haryana

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to the authorities of Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra for providing the laboratory facilities; to Dr M. K. Sharma for help in sample collection; to Dr J. S. Yadav for valuable suggestions; to Professor Jai Rup Singh and to Professor A. J. S. Bhanwar, Department of Human Genetics, G.N.D. University, Amritsar (India) for introducing us to the field of Molecular Human Genetics. We also thank all the individuals who volunteered to give blood samples.

Declaration of interest: This study was supported by grant from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India (letter no BT/PR2722/Med/13/121/2001). The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.