Genes related to the metabolism of nutrients in the Kola Sami population
Kozlov A, Borinskaya S, Vershubsky G, Vasilyev E, Popov V, Sokolova M, Sanina E, Kaljina N, Rebrikov D, Lisitsyn D, Yankovsky N

 

ABSTRACT [full text] [back to issue 67(1)]

Objectives. The environmental and life-style conditions of the Kola Sami could have influenced the population-specific frequencies of the AGXT Pro11Leu allele, and certain alleles of APOE and LCT genes, involved respectively, in the metabolism of animal proteins, lipids and milk sugar.

Study Design. DNA samples were collected from the Sami population of Lovozero settlement (Murmansk Region) in 2005.

Methods. The analysis of the traditional diet of the Kola Sami was made using the data of ethnographic studies conducted in the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Frequencies of the AGXT Pro11Leu, APOE*e4 alleles and LCT gene CC-13910 genotype were defined by molecular-genetic analysis.

Results. The specificity of the Kola Sami gene pool is in the lower frequency of АРОЕ*e4 allele compared with the Sami of Finland (0.205 and 0.310, respectively) and when compared with other groups (except the Skolt) in the higher frequency of hypolactasia conditioned by the CC-13910 genotype of the LCT gene (0.484).
Conclusions. The high prevalence of the AGXT allele T bearers among Kola Sami (0.273) does not contradict the hypothesis of the adaptive role this allele plays in populations with a traditionally high intake of meat.
(Int J Circumpolar Health 2008; 67(1):56-66)

Keywords: Sami, Kola Peninsula, diet, genetics, AGXT Pro11Leu, APOE, LCT