NF-kB1 Rs28362491 Mutant Allele Frequencies Along the Silk Road and Beyond

Background: In the human evolutionary history, Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) frequencies are valu-able in terms of finding connections between different populations. Due to the pronounced role of the im-mune system in combating pathogens and environmental stressors, polymorphisms in the immune genes are subject to selection pressure of the diseases as well. The functional polymorphisms in NF-B1 promoter (-94 ins/del) are associated with different diseases; therefore, we aimed to establish the frequencies of NF-B1 rs28362491 alleles in a population of Southwestern Iranians in comparison with the world populations. Methods: We assessed the polymorphism of -94 ATTG ins/del (rs28362491) in 201 Iranian healthy blood donors from Fars Province, central Iran in a one year period between 2015 and 2016 by PCR-RFLP method using DNA extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Results: The frequency of ins/ins homozygote genotype was found to be 46.97%. The frequency of heterozy-gote individuals was 42.42% and the percentage of del/del homozygote genotype was 10.61%. We observed a genetic similarity based on the genotype frequencies of NF-B1 -94 ins/del ATTG polymorphism between our sample of Iranians with American Jewish, Turkish, American non-Jewish, Chinese-Uyghurs and Germans. Conclusion: The results confirmed genetic interrelation of Iranians with some ancient neighbors and their admixture with countries along the Silk Road. We suggest that mapping the distribution of NF-B1-94 ATTG ins/del along with HLA genes may help to better define the relations between human populations and design population-specific vaccines for pathogens with a high rate of variation.