Genetic architecture and adaptations of Nunavik Inuit

The Canadian Inuit have a distinct population background that may entail particular implications for the health of its individuals. However, the number of genetic studies examining this Inuit population is limited, and much remains to be discovered in regard to its genetic characteristics. In this s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: Zhou, Sirui, Xie, Pingxing, Quoibion, Amélie, Ambalavanan, Amirthagowri, Dionne-Laporte, Alexandre, Spiegelman, Dan, Bourassa, Cynthia V., Xiong, Lan, Dion, Patrick A., Rouleau, Guy A.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: National Academy of Sciences 2019
Subjects:
Biological Sciences
Arctic
Hudson
Hudson Bay
Kya
Nunavik
Ungava Bay
eskimo*
greenlandic
inuit
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6689950/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31332017
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810388116
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Summary:The Canadian Inuit have a distinct population background that may entail particular implications for the health of its individuals. However, the number of genetic studies examining this Inuit population is limited, and much remains to be discovered in regard to its genetic characteristics. In this study, we generated whole-exome sequences and genomewide genotypes for 170 Nunavik Inuit, a small and isolated founder population of Canadian Arctic indigenous people. Our study revealed the genetic background of Nunavik Inuit to be distinct from any known present-day population. The majority of Nunavik Inuit show little evidence of gene flow from European or present-day Native American peoples, and Inuit living around Hudson Bay are genetically distinct from those around Ungava Bay. We also inferred that Nunavik Inuit have a small effective population size of 3,000 and likely split from Greenlandic Inuit ∼10.5 kya. Nunavik Inuit went through a bottleneck at approximately the same time and might have admixed with a population related to the Paleo-Eskimos. Our study highlights population-specific genomic signatures in coding regions that show adaptations unique to Nunavik Inuit, particularly in pathways involving fatty acid metabolism and cellular adhesion (CPNE7, ICAM5, STAT2, and RAF1). Subsequent analyses in selection footprints and the risk of intracranial aneurysms (IAs) in Nunavik Inuit revealed an exonic variant under weak negative selection to be significantly associated with IA (rs77470587; P = 4.6 × 10(−8)).

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