A Genome Scan for Genes Underlying Adult Body Size Differences between Central African Pygmies and their Non-Pygmy Neighbors

AbstractBackgroundCentral African hunter-gatherer Pygmy populations have reduced body size compared with their often much larger agricultural non-Pygmy neighbors, potentially reflecting adaptation to the anatomical and physiological constraints of their lifestyle in tropical rainforests. Earlier studies investigating the genetics of the pygmy phenotype have focused on standing height, one aspect of this complex phenotype that is itself a composite of skeletal components with different growth patterns. Here, we extend the investigations of standing height to the variability and genetic architecture of sitting height and subischial leg length as well as body mass index (BMI) in a sample of 406 unrelated West Central African Pygmies and non-Pygmies.ResultsIn addition to their significantly reduced standing height compared with non-Pygmies, we find Pygmies to have significantly shorter sitting heights and subischial leg lengths as well as higher sitting/standing height ratios than non-Pygmies. However, while male Pygmies had significantly lower BMI compared with male non-Pygmies, the BMI of females were instead similar. Consistent with prior observations with standing height, sitting height and subischial leg length were strongly correlated with inferred levels of non-Pygmy genetic admixture while BMI was instead weakly correlated, likely reflecting the greater contribution of non-genetic factors to the determination of body weight compared with height. Using 196,725 SNPs on the Illumina Cardio-MetaboChip with genotypes on 358 Pygmy and 169 non-Pygmy individuals together with single-and multi-marker association approaches, we identified a single genomic region and seven genes associated with Pygmy/non-Pygmy categorization as well as 9, 10, 9, and 10 genes associated with standing and sitting height, sitting/standing height ratio, and subischial leg length, respectively. Many of the genes identified have putative functions consistent with a role in determining their associated trait as well as the complex Central African pygmy phenotype.ConclusionsThese findings highlight the potential of modestly sized datasets of Pygmies and non-Pygmies to detect biologically meaningful associations with traits contributing to the Central African pygmy phenotype. Moreover, they provide new insights into the phenotypic and genetic bases of the complex pygmy phenotype and offer new opportunities to facilitate our understanding of its complex evolutionary origins.