title: Geographically separate increases in the frequency of the derived ADH1B*47His allele in eastern and western Asia.
abstract: The ADH1B Arg47His polymorphism has been convincingly associated with alcoholism in numerous studies of several populations in Asia and Europe. In a review of literature from the past 30 years, we have identified studies that report allele frequencies of this polymorphism for 131 population samples from many different parts of the world. The derived ADH1B*47His allele reaches high frequencies only in western and eastern Asia. To pursue this pattern, we report here new frequency data for 37 populations. Most of our data are from South and Southeast Asia and confirm that there is a low frequency of this allele in the region between eastern and western Asia. The distribution suggests that the derived allele increased in frequency independently in western and eastern Asia after humans had spread across Eurasia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Namita
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mukherjee
authors.forename: Usha
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Soundararajan
authors.forename: Zsanett
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Tarnok
authors.forename: Csaba
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Barta
authors.forename: Shagufta
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khaliq
authors.forename: Aisha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mohyuddin
authors.forename: Sylvester L B
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Kajuna
authors.forename: S Qasim
authors.initials: SQ
authors.lastname: Mehdi
authors.forename: Judith R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Kidd
authors.forename: Kenneth K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Kidd
mesh_terms: D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase / Q000235:genetics*; D000483:Alleles; D001208:Asia; D001211:Asia, Western; D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D051456:Gene Flow; D005787:Gene Frequency; D040961:Genetic Drift; D006801:Humans; D012641:Selection, Genetic
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; C489332:ADH1B protein, human; D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase