Ancestry of African Americans with sickle cell disease

The inheritance of genetic disease depends on ancestry that must be considered when interpreting genetic association studies and can provide insights when comparing traits in a population. We compared the genetic profiles of African Americans with sickle cell disease to those of Black Africans and Caucasian populations of European descent and found that they are less genetically admixed than other African Americans and have an ancestry similar to Yorubans, Mandenkas and Bantu. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.