GENETIC-VARIABILITY OF HLA IN THE DARIUSLEUT HUTTERITES - A COMPARATIVE GENETIC-ANALYSIS OF THE HUTTERITIES, THE AMISH, AND OTHER SELECTED CAUCASIAN POPULATIONS

  • 1 January 1980
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 32  (2) , 246-257
Abstract
There are 3 endogamous subdivisions of the Hutterite population, a North American religious isolate. These individuals live on communal farms, and residence is strictly patrilocal. The distributions of HLA-A and HLA-B alleles and haplotypes are reported from 203 married women from 1 subdivision, the Dariusleut, in Alberta, Canada. There is significant linkage disequilibrium among a large fraction of the distinct haplotypes in the Dariusleut Hutterite data, and the number of distinct haplotypes present in the Dariusleut is restricted. The Hutterites and the Old Order Amish (Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA) are the most genetically distant pair of populations in an ensemble of 11 Caucasian populations, and the Old Order Amish and the Hutterites are approximately as distant from the Indiana Amish as they are from the 8 other Caucasian populations, which are tightly clustered in the space of gene frequencies. The Amish and the Hutterites are evidently genetic isolates with small numbers of founders. Certain haplotypes show significant linkage disequilibrium in these and in other Caucasian samples. Some of the linkage disequilibrium antedates the formation of these Anabaptist sects.