SUBJECT

Anthropogenetics

lecture

master

Faculty of Science

Biology MSc

2

Semesters 1-4

Autumn/Spring semester

1. Human genome, heredity and heritability of the most important human characteristics, methods in human genetics, ethical aspects of human genetic surveys, genetic diversity of human populations

2. Anthropological genetics: problems and challenges, genetic markers of the blood in human population genetic surveys; differences in gene frequencies among human populations, genetics of isolated populations, human genetic distances, modelling the demographic events; the role of modelling in human genetics, demogrpahic studies of human populations, genetic adaptation in man in the XXIst century, genetic guidance

3. History of human genetics, methods in human genetics, pedigree analysis, twin studies, autocorrelations, chromosome abnormalities, statistical analysis, ethics in human genetics, Eugenetics: history of eugenetics, problems in eugenetics, negative eugenetics, marriage and consanguinity, positive eugenetics genetic engineering

4. Genetic introduction: organisation of the human genome, gene expression, instability of the human genome (mutation, DNS repair), gene mapping, pleiotropy, expressivity, penetrancy, lethality, modification, multifactoral heredity, heredity of linked genes, genetic polymorphisms

5. Quantitative features, poligenic heredity and the environmental factors, genetic models of quantitative features, genotype-environment interactions

6. Poligenic heredity (heredity of the colour of the skin); genetic variance in random mating, influence of assortative mating on quantitative features, inbreeding

7. Twinning, twin studies in heritability assessment, „Nature versus Nurture” theory and the limits of heritability conception; influence of the natural selection on the quantitative features

8. Sexual dimorphism: sexual determination, X-chromosome map, abnormalities of the sex chromosomes, Y-linked features, dose-compensation and X-chromosome inactivation, sexual rate, natural selection and the sexual rate, evolution of the human sexual dimorphism

9. Human population structure: random genetic flow, demographic data need in gene flow analyses, genetic migration, gene flow and the chronology, kinship and gene flow; gene diffusion; gene frequency assessment after n generation

10. Genetic demography and the natural selection: demography and the genetic fitness, genetic success assessment, birth rate and death rate and, life table and Lotka equation for describing the increase in the population size, r coefficient in the assessment of selectional differences, litter size distribution, assessment of the intensity of selection, evolutionary success and the probability index of selection

11. Human inbreeding: consanguinity and inbreeding, inbreeding coefficient, average inbreeding in human population, consequences of inbreeding; mortality and inbreeding, the influence of inbreeding on gene frequencies

12. Consanguinity and lethal recessive features, retrospective study of consanguinity’s genetic effects, mental disorders, deaf-mute abnormality, blindness, the assessment of mutation.

13. Cultural evolution and its influence on the natural selection, further human interactions between cultural and biological evolution, fertility pattern, migration, environmental destruction and pollution and the mutation, segregation

14. Populations and the society, changes in complexity of the society, sterility, family planning

• Michael H. Crawford: Anthropological Genetics: Theory, Methods and Applications, Cambridge University Press, 2007, ISBN 9780521546973

• Lewis, R.: Human Genetics: The Basics, Garland Science, 2010, ISBN 9780203840580

• Strachan, T., Read, A.: Human Molecular Genetics, Garland Science, 2004, ISBN 9780815341840