Homo sapiens Variation

The Qatari population, located at the Arabian migration crossroads of African and Eura-sia, is comprised of three distinct genetic subgroups, Bedouin (Q1), Persian (Q2) and African (Q3). We hypothesized that deep exome sequencing of only a few Qataris from each subgroup (Q1 n=3, Q2 n=2, and Q3 n=2) and comparison to the data from 1000 Genome populations would permit identification of alleles that differentiate the Qatari people from populations worldwide. Analysis of predicted deleterious coding sequence variations together with databases of disease- and drug metabolism-related mutations were used to identify which of these alleles may be deleterious and of medical importance for this population.