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Post by Admin on Jul 7, 2024 19:29:53 GMT
Hannibal Barca was a Carthaginian general who was considered to be one of the great military leaders in history. Hannibal was born in 183 BCE and lived during a time of great political and military strife. Carthage was a large and important Phoenician city-state in northern Africa, which was often at odds with the Greek and Roman empires. Because Hannibal came from Africa, the question is sometimes asked, "was Hannibal Black?"  What Is Meant by the Terms "Black" and "Africa?" The term Black in modern usage in the U.S. means something different from what the common Latin adjective for 'black' (niger) would mean. Frank M. Snowden explains this in his article "Misconceptions about African Blacks in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Specialists and Afrocentrists." Compared with a Mediterranean person, someone from Scythia or Ireland was noticeably white and someone from Africa was noticeably black. In Egypt, as in other areas of northern Africa, there were other colors that could be used to describe complexions. There was also a good deal of intermarriage between the lighter-skinned people in northern Africa and the darker-skinned people called Ethiopians or Nubians. Hannibal may have been darker-skinned than a Roman, but he would not have been described as Ethiopian. Hannibal came from an area referred to as northern Africa, from a Carthaginian family. The Carthaginians were Phoenicians, which means that they would conventionally be described as a Semitic people. The term Semitic refers to a variety of people from the ancient Near East (e.g., Assyrians, Arabs, and Hebrews), which included parts of northern Africa. Regarding his DNA, as far as we know, we have no skeleton, fragmentary bones, or physical traces of him, so establishing his ethnicity would be mostly speculative. From what we think we know about his family ancestry, however, his Barcid family (if that’s even the right name) has been generally understood as descending from Phoenician aristocracy. ...[so] his original ancestry would be located in what is modern Lebanon today. As far as we know, little to no Africanization—if that is an acceptable term—happened there in that region before or during his era. On the other hand, since the Phoenicians arrived and then later settled in what is now Tunisia... almost 1,000 years before Hannibal, it is very possible his family had intermixed in DNA with peoples then living in North Africa....we shouldn’t deny any possible Africanization of the region of Carthage. Ancient DNA of Phoenician remains indicates discontinuity in the settlement history of Ibiza Abstract Ibiza was permanently settled around the 7th century BCE by founders arriving from west Phoenicia. The founding population grew significantly and reached its height during the 4th century BCE. We obtained nine complete mitochondrial genomes from skeletal remains from two Punic necropoli in Ibiza and a Bronze Age site from Formentara. We also obtained low coverage (0.47X average depth) of the genome of one individual, directly dated to 361–178 cal BCE, from the Cas Molí site on Ibiza. We analysed and compared ancient DNA results with 18 new mitochondrial genomes from modern Ibizans to determine the ancestry of the founders of Ibiza. The mitochondrial results indicate a predominantly recent European maternal ancestry for the current Ibizan population while the whole genome data suggest a significant Eastern Mediterranean component. Our mitochondrial results suggest a genetic discontinuity between the early Phoenician settlers and the island’s modern inhabitants. Our data, while limited, suggest that the Eastern or North African influence in the Punic population of Ibiza was primarily male dominated. www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35667-y |
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Post by Admin on Jul 7, 2024 20:04:39 GMT
The investigation of the origin of Southern Tunisians using HLA genes Abstract The south of Tunisia is characterized by marked ethnic diversity, highlighted by the coexistence of native Berbers with Blacks, Jews and Arab-speaking populations. Despite this heterogeneity, genetic anthropology studies investigating the origin of current Southern Tunisians were rarely reported. We examined human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I (A, B) and class II (DRB1, DQB1) gene profiles of 250 unrelated Southern Tunisians, and compared them with those of Arab-speaking communities, along with Mediterranean and sub-Sahara African populations using genetic distances, neighbor-joining dendrograms, correspondence and haplotype analysis. In total, 137 HLA alleles were detected, which comprised 32 HLA-A, 52 HLA-B, 32 DRB1 and 21 DQB1 alleles. The most frequent alleles were HLA-A*02:01(18.02%), HLA-B*50:01 (9.11%), HLA-DRB1*07:01 (22.06%) and HLA-DQB1*02:01 (17.21%). All pairs of HLA loci show significant linkage disequilibrium. The four loci depict negative Fnd (the normalized deviate of the homozygosity) values indicating an overall trend to balancing selection. Southern Tunisians appear to be closely related to others Tunisian populations including Berbers, North Africans and Iberians. On the contrary, Southern Tunisians were distinct from Palestinian, Lebanese and Jordanian Middle Eastern Arab-speaking population, despite the deep Arab incursions and Arabization that affected Southern Tunisia. In addition, Southern Tunisians were distant from many sub-Saharan communities, evidenced by genetic distance analysis. Collectively, this indicates a limited genetic contribution of Arab invasion and Black caravans on the makeup of Southern Tunisian gene pool. www.nature.com/articles/jhg2016146 |
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Post by Admin on Jul 7, 2024 22:32:09 GMT
Introduction The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region is the most polymorphic region in the human genome, and extends ~3.6 Mb on the short arm of chromosome 6,1 with more than 13 000 HLA alleles deposited in the IMGT/HLA database.2 The high polymorphism, tight linkage, the random association of alleles and the perpetuation of allelic lineages over time make HLA genetic markers an invaluable tool in unraveling the human past. The crucial information relating to amount, pattern and distribution of genetic variation of HLA genetic markers in different populations enable us to correlate genetic profile of populations and their past migrations in the determination of their origin.3 Present-day Tunisians derive their origins from native Berbers and civilizations, which either invaded or migrated to Tunisia throughout history. These included Phoenicians (ancestors of Lebanese) and Romans, who were succeeded by the invasion of European tribes, such as the Vandals.4 In the 7th century AD, Muslim people coming from the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East invaded Tunisia, and founded the first Islamic city in North Africa, Kairouan. A significant admixture of the Tunisian population was with the Islamic invasion of the South of Tunisia in 11th century AD by Arabian Peninsula tribes.5 Tunisia was later invaded by Turks (Ottoman) and Europeans, and became a French protectorate until the formal independence from France was obtained in 1956. Southern Tunisia (Figure 1) is characterized by high ethnical diversity, and its present population (~12% of the total population according to official census in 2014) comprises Berbers, Blacks, Jews and Arab-speaking populations. The native Berbers reside in geographically isolated communities (Matmata, Djerba, Douiret and so on), and speak Shleuh and Arabic. Tunisian Blacks are more frequent in Southern (particularly in Douz, Kebili and Tataouine) than Northern Tunisia.6 Tunisian Jews (estimated at 1500; <0.1% of total population) cluster in Djerba Island, and they probably came from Andalus and Levant.7 In addition, a large part of Southern Tunisians think that their origin, culture and religion came from Banu Hilal and Banu Soulaym tribes who invaded Southern Tunisians in the eleventh century.8 On the other hand, some studies claim that Southern Tunisians are indeed (native) Berbers, who were ‘Arabized’ during the Arab invasions in the eleventh century.9, 10 Our study is an attempt to understand the most likely origin of this population, which was considered the gateway for Arabs to invade all the Maghreb. Figure 1  |
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Post by Admin on Jul 10, 2024 19:24:13 GMT
Materials and methods Study subjects Study subjects comprised 250 unrelated healthy Southern Tunisian individuals of both genders (119 males and 131 females), who were randomly collected and selected from different cities (capitals of governorates) of South Tunisia (Figure 1), taking into account the number of inhabitants in each governorate. All subjects were randomly chosen among individuals whose ancestors have lived in the region for at least three generations. No ethnic, linguistic or religious selection has been applied in the sampling to ensure a representative sample of the current southern population. All participants were interviewed to ensure that no individuals have common ancestry going back at least three generations. Informed and written consent to participate in the study was obtained from all participants; consent being approved by participating institutions. Research and ethics committees of National Blood Transfusion Center (Tunis, Tunisia) and University of Tunis El Manar (Tunis, Tunisia) approved the protocol of the study, as per the Declaration of Helsinki. DNA extraction Genomic DNA was prepared from peripheral mononuclear cells using salting-out method.11 Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid blood samples were lysed and pellets were stored frozen at −20 °C. The cell lysates were digested overnight at 37 °C with 0.2 ml of 10% SDS and 0.5 ml of a proteinase K solution. After digestion was complete, 1 ml of saturated NaCl (~6 M) was added to each tube and shaken vigorously for 15 s, followed by centrifugation at 2500 r.p.m. for 15 min. The supernatant containing the DNA was transferred to another tube. Exactly two volumes of absolute ethanol were added and the tubes inverted several times until the DNA precipitated. Finally, the obtained DNA was allowed to dissolve in distilled water 2 h at 37 °C. Concentration and purity of DNA samples were spectrophotometrically quantified. HLA DNA genotyping High-Resolution Genotyping Kits (Innogenetics, ‘fujirebio-Europe’, NV Zwijndrecht, Belgium)12 were used for HLA class I (A, B) and class II (DRB1 and DQB1) genotyping. These kits are based on the reverse dot-blot hybridization principle. Amplified biotinylated DNA material is chemically denatured, and the separated strands are hybridized with specific oligonucleotide probes immobilized as parallel lines on membrane-based strips. Hybridization is carried out in special test troughs, in a water bath and under gentle agitation. After removing any mismatched amplified material by stringent wash, streptavidin conjugated with alkaline phosphatase is added and bound to any biotinylated hybrid formed previously. The incubation of membrane-based strips with a substrate solution containing a BCIP/NBT chromogen leads to the appearance of a purple/brown precipitate. Finally, the reaction is stopped by a wash step, and the reactivity pattern of the probes is recorded and interpreted. In the case of suspected homozygosity or ambiguities, samples will be retyped using One Lambda PCR-SSP High-Resolution Kits (One Lambda, Canoga Park, CA, USA) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Briefly, PCR reaction was performed by using multiple pairs of cis-located allele-specific primers. After amplification, 10 μl of each PCR reaction was transferred in sequence to a 2.5% agarose gel with 0.5 μg ml−1 ethidium bromide and electrophoresed at 150 V for 4 min. Then, the result of migration is documented by photography. The patterns of positive amplifications were used to interpret HLA genotypes by using an appropriate software. The assignment of HLA alleles was made as per the World Health Organization Nomenclature Committee for Factors of HLA System.13 Statistical analysis HLA allele frequencies were calculated by the gene counting. Haplotype frequencies were estimated by maximum likelihood from genotypic data using the expectation-maximization algorithm,14 embedded in the Arlequin v.2.0.1 software.15 Linkage disequilibrium (LD) between alleles, defined as the non-random association of two alleles of two loci on the same chromosome, and the level of significance (P) for 2 × 2 comparisons, and the relative LD (D′), were also calculated by Arlequin.16 Phylogenetic trees (dendrograms) were constructed from individual allelic frequencies by the neighbor-joining (NJ) method,17 with standard genetic distances (SGDs),18 using the DISPAN software.19 Three-dimensional correspondence analysis and bi-dimensional representation were carried out using VISTAV5.02 software.20 Correspondence analysis, a geometric technique used for displaying a global view of the relationship among populations according to HLA (or other) allele frequencies, was based on the differential allele frequencies among populations, and on the display of a statistical projection of these differences. PyPop (Python for Population genomics, version 0.7.0 was used to perform Hardy–Weinberg testing, pairwise LD estimates21, 22 and Ewens–Watterson homozygosity test.23, 24 This test of homozygosity was applied to each locus, using Slatkin’s Monte Carlo implementation of the exact test. The observed (Fobs) and expected (Fexp) homozygosity (under neutral selection) were calculated, respectively, as sum of the squares of allele frequencies and through simulation, for the same sample size with the same number of alleles. The difference between Fobs and Fexp, divided by the square root of the variance of Fexp provides the normalized deviate of the homozygosity (Fnd).23, 24, 25, 26 The latter was used to infer the action of balancing or directional selection at each locus. The observed homozygosity value for populations evolving under neutral conditions will be similar to the expected homozygosity value, and the resulting Fnd value will be close to zero. Significantly negative Fnd values imply balancing selection and/or high levels of geneflow, whereas significantly positive values imply directional selection and/or extreme demographic effects (e.g., a population bottleneck) as a result of genetic drift. The correlations between two-locus D′ and physical distance (PD) was assessed using the nonparametric coefficient of Spearman.27 Spearman's rank correlation or Spearman's ρ is a nonparametric test that is used to measure the degree of statistical dependence between two variables. Spearman's rank correlation test does not assume any assumptions about the distribution of the data, and is the appropriate correlation analysis when the variables are measured on a scale that is at least ordinal. Its value ranges from −1 to 1. If ρ is <0, the correlation is negative; if it is >1, the correlation is positive. A perfect Spearman's correlation of +1 or −1 occurs when each of the variables is a perfect monotone function of the other. Spearman's coefficient is appropriate for both continuous and discrete variables, including ordinal variables. |
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Post by Admin on Jul 12, 2024 19:29:09 GMT
Results
HLA allele frequencies in the studied population
The expected and observed allele frequencies for HLA-A, -B, -DRB1, and -DQB1 loci were in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium in the population sample (Table 2). The frequencies of HLA-A, -B, -DRB1 and -DQB1 alleles in Southern Tunisians are presented in Table 3. One hundred and thirty-seven different HLA alleles were detected in the sample. Of the thirty-two HLA-A alleles identified, A*02:01 (18.02%), A*34:02 (9.31%) and A*01:01 (8.5%) were the most frequent allele in Southern Tunisians. These were also observed in high frequencies in North African,28 Iberian29 and Mediterranean30 populations. Among HLA-B alleles, 52 were identified in Southerner Tunisians, of which B*50:01 (9.11%) and B*51:01 (7.49%) were the most frequent. Both B*50 and B*51 are common alleles in several Mediterranean and Arab-speaking populations.28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37
Among HLA class II alleles, 32 DRB1 alleles were found in Southern Tunisians; the most frequent was DRB1*07:01 (22.06%), which was present at high frequencies in Tunisian Berbers (17.6%),33 and from the Ghannouch area (28.7%).10 In addition, DRB1*03:01 (16.4%) was frequent in Tunisians,9, 10, 32, 33, 34, 38 which was also present at comparable frequencies in Moroccans (17.3%),39 Berbers (15.1%)33 and Basques.29 In addition, of the 21 HLA-DQB1 alleles detected, DQB1*02:01 was the most frequent (17.21%), followed by DQB1*02:02 (16.6%) and DQB1*03:01 (16.6%). These alleles were also reported for Tunisian and Mediterranean populations.9, 10, 32, 33, 34
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