Demographic history was a formative mechanism of the genetic structure for the taste receptor TAS2R16 in human populations inhabiting Africa's Sahel/Savannah Belt

Objectives: Mode of subsistence is an important factor influencing dietary habits and the genetic structure of various populations through differential intensity of gene flow and selection pressures. Previous studies suggest that in Africa Taste 2 Receptor Member 16 (TAS2R16), which encodes the 7-transmembrane receptor protein for bitterness, might also be under positive selection pressure. Methods: However, since sampling coverage of populations was limited, we created a new TAS2R16 population dataset from across the African Sahel/Savannah belt rep-resenting various local populations of differing subsistence modes, linguistic affilia-tions, and geographic provenience. We sequenced the TAS2R16 exon gene and analyzed 2250 haplotypes among 19 populations. Results: We found no evidence for selection as a driving force of genetic variation at this locus; instead, we discovered a highly significant correlation between TAS2R16 genetic and geographical distances based on provenience of the sampled populations, strongly suggesting that genetic drift most likely prevailed over positive selection at this specific locus. We also found significant correlations with other inde-pendent loci, mainly in sedentary farmers. Discussion: Our results do not support the notion that the genetic diversity of TAS2R16 in Sahelian populations was shaped by selective pressures. This could result from several alternative and not mutually exclusive mechanisms, of which the possi-bility that, due to the pleiotropic nature of TAS2R16, selective pressures on other traits could counterbalance those acting on bitter taste perception, or that the change of diet in the Neolithic generally relaxed selective pressure on this gene.