Comparative Study of Nei’s D with other Genetic Distance Measures between Barak Valley Muslims and other Nations for ABO Locus

Abstract

Quantification of the genetic distance between populations is essential in many genetic research programs. Several formulae were proposed for the estimation of genetic distance between populations using gene frequency data. But the selection of a suitable measure for estimating genetic distance between real-world human populations is a very difficult task despite the widely used measure Nei’s D. The present study was undertaken to estimate the genetic distance between Barak Valley Muslims (BVM) and other twenty-four nations using seven different measures with ABO blood group gene frequency data for comparative analysis and to estimate the correlation coefficients between distance measures and to work out the linear regression equations. Seven genetic distance measures namely Nei’s D, Nei’s Nm, La, Nei’s Da, Dc, Re and Nei’s Ne were estimated between BVM and other 24 nations enroute the journey of mankind from Africa that commenced about 200,000 years ago (www.bradshawfoundation.com). Correlation coefficients between Nei’s D with other measures were estimated to find out which other genetic distance measures were closely related to Nei’s D. Nei’s D showed highly significant (p=0.01) positive correlation with Cavalli-Sforza and Edwards chord distance Dc (0.90), Reynolds Re (0.90), Nei’s Da (0.74) and Nei’s Ne (0.63) but negative correlation with Nei’s Nm and La. Linear regression equations of Nei’s D with other distance measures were estimated as Da = -0.80 + 1.34D, Dc = 1.91 + 4.44D, Re = -0.51 + 0.24D and Ne = -7.60 + 1.30D.