title: Worldwide population distribution of the common LCE3C-LCE3B deletion associated with psoriasis and other autoimmune disorders.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is increasing evidence of the importance of copy number variants (CNV) in genetic diversity among individuals and populations, as well as in some common genetic diseases. We previously characterized a common 32-kb insertion/deletion variant of the PSORS4 locus at chromosome 1q21 that harbours the LCE3C and LCE3B genes. This variant allele (LCE3C_LCE3B-del) is common in patients with psoriasis and other autoimmune disorders from certain ethnic groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Using array-CGH (Agilent 244 K) in samples from the HapMap and Human Genome Diversity Panel (HGDP) collections, we identified 54 regions showing population differences in comparison to Africans. We provided here a comprehensive population-genetic analysis of one of these regions, which involves the 32-kb deletion of the PSORS4 locus. By a PCR-based genotyping assay we characterised the profiles of the LCE3C_LCE3B-del and the linkage disequilibrium (LD) pattern between the variant allele and the tag SNP rs4112788. Our results show that most populations tend to have a higher frequency of the deleted allele than Sub-Saharan Africans. Furthermore, we found strong LD between rs4112788G and LCE3C_LCE3B-del in most non-African populations (r2 >0.8), in contrast to the low concordance between loci (r2 <0.3) in the African populations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results are another example of population variability in terms of biomedical interesting CNV. The frequency distribution of the LCE3C_LCE3B-del allele and the LD pattern across populations suggest that the differences between ethnic groups might not be due to natural selection, but the consequence of genetic drift caused by the strong bottleneck that occurred during "out of Africa" expansion.
authors.forename: Laia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bassaganyas
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Riveira-Muñoz
authors.forename: Manel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: García-Aragonés
authors.forename: Juan R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: González
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cáceres
authors.forename: Lluís
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Armengol
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Estivill
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000235:genetics; D002878:Chromosomes, Human, Pair 1; D055028:Comparative Genomic Hybridization; D056915:DNA Copy Number Variations; D005787:Gene Frequency; D005828:Genetics, Population; D060005:Genotyping Techniques; D060148:HapMap Project; D016045:Human Genome Project; D006801:Humans; D054643:INDEL Mutation; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000235:genetics*; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000235:genetics; D017384:Sequence Deletion