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Genetic differentiation in East African ethnicities and its relationship with endurance running success.

André L S ZaniMateus H GouveiaMarla M AquinoRodrigo QuevedoRodrigo L MenezesCharles RotimiGerald O LwandeCollins OumaEphrem MekonnenNelson Rosa Fagundes
Published in: PloS one (2022)
Since the 1960s, East African athletes, mainly from Kenya and Ethiopia, have dominated long-distance running events in both the male and female categories. Further demographic studies have shown that two ethnic groups are overrepresented among elite endurance runners in each of these countries: the Kalenjin, from Kenya, and the Oromo, from Ethiopia, raising the possibility that this dominance results from genetic or/and cultural factors. However, looking at the life history of these athletes or at loci previously associated with endurance athletic performance, no compelling explanation has emerged. Here, we used a population approach to identify peaks of genetic differentiation for these two ethnicities and compared the list of genes close to these regions with a list, manually curated by us, of genes that have been associated with traits possibly relevant to endurance running in GWAS studies, and found a significant enrichment in both populations (Kalenjin, P = 0.048, and Oromo, P = 1.6x10-5). Those traits are mainly related to anthropometry, circulatory and respiratory systems, energy metabolism, and calcium homeostasis. Our results reinforce the notion that endurance running is a systemic activity with a complex genetic architecture, and indicate new candidate genes for future studies. Finally, we argue that a deterministic relationship between genetics and sports must be avoided, as it is both scientifically incorrect and prone to reinforcing population (racial) stereotyping.
Keyphrases
  • high intensity
  • genome wide
  • resistance training
  • skeletal muscle
  • dna methylation
  • copy number
  • case control
  • body composition
  • transcription factor
  • genome wide identification
  • genetic diversity