PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

12-Jun-2014

Contact: Krista Conger kristac@stanford.edu 650-725-5371 Stanford University Medical Center

The first large-scale, comprehensive analysis of the genomic diversity of Mexico led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, the University of California-San Francisco and the Mexican National Institute of Genomic Medicine has identified a dazzling mosaic of genotypes and population substructures across the country.

Some groups are as genetically different from one another as Europeans are from East Asians.

The study, which will be published June 13 in Science, soundly refutes the current practice of lumping together Mexicans or Latinos as a homogenous group for genetic, clinical or population studies. In particular, the researchers found that variations in Native American ancestry among Mexicans and Mexican Americans significantly affect biomedical traits, such as lung function, emphasizing the importance of incorporating fine-scale ethnic information into clinical practice.

The analysis represents an international collaboration of researchers from the United States, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom.

"Understanding the genetic structure of a population is important for understanding its population history, as well as designing studies of complex biomedical traits, including disease susceptibility," said Stanford professor of genetics Carlos Bustamante, PhD. "As we deploy genomics technology in previously understudied populations like those of Latin America, we discover remarkable richness in the genetic diversity of these important groups and why it matters for health and disease."

"Mexico harbors one of the largest amounts of pre-Columbian genetic diversity in the Americas," said Andres Moreno-Estrada, MD, PhD, life sciences research associate at Stanford. "For the first time, we've mapped this diversity to a very fine geographic scale, and shown that it has a notable physiological impact on an important clinical trait: lung function."

Bustamante, who directs the Stanford Center for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics, shares senior authorship of the study with Esteban Burchard, MD, MPH, professor of bioengineering and therapeutic sciences and medicine at UCSF. Moreno shares lead authorship with Christopher Gignoux, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar now at Stanford and previously at UCSF, and Juan Carlos Fernandez Lopez, a researcher at the Mexican genomic institute.

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Vast genetic diversity among Mexicans found in large-scale study

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