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The Middle East is not well included in international genetic studies, so many aspects of the genetic diversity of the people who live there were not previously known.
AlgeriaLebanese researcher Dr Marc Haber is a research group leader at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences at the University of Birmingham, England, and one of the members of the international team participating in the exciting study on the genome of the population of the Middle East, the results of which were published on August 4 in the journal Cell (Cell) which published a press release on the study.
Although researchers have obtained important information about the past of the ancestors of the inhabitants of the Middle East, Mark Haber did not hide that there are many questions which still concern them, and that these questions will be the subject of research. ‘future studies, as he confirmed in this interview with Al Jazeera Net via email:
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Your specialty is the study of people’s genes to understand how diseases have evolved throughout history. Are there more explanations on this specialty?
Human DNA is the product of past biological and demographic events that humans have known throughout history, that is, since its existence, and mutations can occur naturally from generation to generation. the other, then people carry those mutations with them when they migrate and mix with other people.
Most of these newer mutations have no effect, but some can alter gene function. We are studying these mutations and whether they have positive or negative results by producing and sequencing the complete genomes of people from different populations.
We studied about 137 samples and the last work took about two years (Pixabe)-
Your recent study on the genes of the Middle East population was very exciting as it is the first of its kind in the region, can you tell us exactly the study area and how long did your work take?
The populations we studied came from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Oman, and Egypt. We studied about 137 samples and the last work took about two years, but it was an extension of the work we started over 5 years ago.
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Are 137 samples sufficient for an in-depth study of the genome?
DNA information is not only for these people but for all their ancestors, it serves as a historical data bank.
Our DNA comes from both parents, and both parents have their DNA from their parents, so a person’s DNA is an extension of many who have come before and includes information about all of those people.
This means that the DNA of 137 people already contains information about millions of people, not just the person being studied.
All humans descend from a population that existed in Africa 200,000 to 300,000 years ago (Pixabi)-
You said that the peoples of the Middle East descend like other peoples from African ancestors, do you confirm that?
All humans, including the inhabitants of the Middle East, are descended from a single population group that existed in Africa around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.
Then, about 60,000 years ago, a group came out of Africa and split into two. One spread to the rest of the world and the other stayed in the Middle East. The peoples of the Middle East still have origins today from these first inhabitants.
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How have people in the Middle East adapted to the changing climate in the region, for example developed new farming methods or housing adapted to the new situation? Were they also socially affected, for example?
As genetic researchers, we find that ancient changes in people’s lifestyles have affected their genes.
For example, about 8,000 years ago, the people of the Arabian Peninsula began to turn to herding and animal husbandry. This change in people’s lives allowed a mutation, leading to better digestion of milk, to multiply and spread among the population.
Mark Haber: Middle East not well included in international genetic studies (Al-Jazeera)-
You said in the study that you discovered genetic variants associated with type 2 diabetes, can you explain that?
In our study, we found that some diabetes-related mutations have increased in the population over the past two millennia, which is surprising because while these mutations are harmful, they are expected to decrease rather than increase in the population over time. . This made us believe that these mutations could have played a different role in the past, but that certain environmental or living changes today made them harmful.
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What role are you talking about, did you get any information about it?
Actually, we don’t have a scientific explanation yet, but it’s an amazing and surprising thing that we want to study in the future.
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With the exception of diabetes, are there any common diseases that were previously prevalent among the population of the region?
Of course, there are diseases that existed in the past and are still prevalent today, but our study sheds light on diabetes because we found that the mutations associated with it appeared to be natural selection, i.e. that is, they were affected by certain factors that we will find out in the future.
DNA sequences from the region’s population were compared to the rest of the world’s population (Pixabe)-
You said in the study that you found approximately 23.1 million mutants in the genes of the population of the region, of which 4.8 million were not known to you before. Can we talk in detail about this aspect?
The Middle East region is not well included in international genetic studies. So many aspects of the genetic diversity of the people who live there were not known before.
When we produced DNA sequencing data from the Middle East, we compared it with other parts of the world, we found millions of region-specific mutations and most importantly the function of the majority of these mutations is still unknown until now, and their understanding and analysis will be the basis for future studies.
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What difficulties did you encounter in carrying out this study? Do we expect further studies in the future in this context?
Indeed, we did not encounter any particular difficulty, all the necessary means being available in our laboratories. I consider our study to be only the beginning of an understanding of all the genetic diversity that exists in the Middle East.
In the future, we will study more DNA, not only of people living today, but also of people who lived in the past by studying archaeological remains. This will help to better understand the changes in our genes and their impact on our health.
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