GENETIC-VARIATION OF RECENT ALU INSERTIONS IN HUMAN-POPULATIONS

The Alu family of interspersed repeats is comprised of over 500,000 me mbers which may be divided into discrete subfamilies based upon mutati ons held in common between members. Distinct subfamilies of Alu sequen ces have amplified within the human genome in recent evolutionary hist ory, Several individual Alu family members have amplified so recently in human evolution that they are variable as to presence and absence a t specific loci within different human populations. Here, we report on the distribution of six polymorphic Alu insertions in a survey of 563 individuals from 14 human population groups across several continents . Our results indicate that these polymorphic Alu insertions probably have an African origin and that there is a much smaller amount of gene tic variation between European populations than that found between oth er population groups.