HLA genes in Cubans and the detection of Amerindian alleles

HLA class I polymorphism in the Cuban population

“…Similar results were also achieved by Alegre et al, but based on HLA-DRB1 alleles [39], indicating that the genetic contribution of the Amerindian component is still present in the Cuban population.…”

“…Interestingly, the French population is the closest to Cuban whites according to genetic distances. A similar result was obtained in a previous study using high-resolution HLA-DRB1 and -DQB1 allele frequencies [39]. This fact is not consistent with the correspondence analysis, which shows clearly that the French are located at a longer distance from the Cuban whites than all the Iberian populations except the Basques (see Figure 2).…”

Tumor necrosis factor–alpha, transforming growth factor–β1, and interleukin-10 gene polymorphisms: implication in protection or susceptibility to dengue hemorrhagic fever

“…It have been reported that many SNPs may violate Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for noncausal reasons, especially if the population is ethnically diverse [34]. Probably the wide genetic admixture of the Cuban population, which is of European and African descent, with some Amerindian traces [9,35], could have influenced in the results we got. Table 1 shows the distribution of TNF-␣ (Ϫ308) allelic and genotypes variants in DHF and control individuals.…”

Echovirus Epidemics, Autoimmunity, and Type 1 Diabetes

“…This is in agreement with the genetic structure of the Cuban population which is composed mainly by individuals with Spanish descent (65.05%) followed by individuals with a variable degree of Spanish and West African admixed ancestry (23.84%) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubans). In a collaborative study, the frequency of HLA alleles in a sample of the healthy Cuban population was analyzed (Alegre et al, 2007). A neighbor-joining tree using HLA-DRB1 alleles showed that the Cuban population is grouped together with Mediterranean populations and well separated from Amerindian and Oriental populations.…”

“…Similarly, genetic distances (based on HLA-DRB1-DQB1 allelic frequencies) between Cubans and other populations show that Cubans are close to Mediterranean and European populations. French, Berbers and Spaniards show the closest genetic distances to Cubans, followed by Russians, Algerians and Spanish Basques (Alegre et al, 2007). It is important to notice that associations between genotype and outcome (e.g.…”