THE genome club just claimed its first clergyman, in the shape of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Tutu and a Khoisan man from the Kalahari are the first southern Africans to have their genomes sequenced and published.
In November 2008, a Han Chinese man and a Nigerian man became the first non-whites to have their genomes sequenced. Each of the southern African genomes is a source of further untapped genetic diversity. Interestingly, their genomes are as similar to Europeans鈥� as they are to the other sequenced African genomes 鈥� both from Yorubas.
The genome of Tutu, a Bantu, yielded over 412,000 new variants. An even greater number came from the unnamed Khoisan 鈥� almost 744,000. This is probably because Khoisans were among the earliest human populations to form and they have not interbred much with other groups, says project leader , a genomicist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park (Nature, ).
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Schuster鈥檚 team say some of the Khoisan鈥檚 mutations may be down to the group鈥檚 largely hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Meanwhile, variants lurking in both new genomes may help explain why some southern Africans respond poorly to existing anti-retroviral drugs that treat HIV. If so, this could help design more effective anti-retrovirals, says Schuster.
