Patterns of Polymorphism and Linkage Disequilibrium Suggest Independent Origins of the Human Growth Hormone Gene Cluster

Six restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) detected in the human growth hormone-human chorionic somatomammotropin (hGH-hCS) gene cluster were studied in Mediterraneans, Northern Europeans, and American Blacks; the polymorphisms showed that, on the average, one of 500 bases in this cluster is variant. Haplotypes constructed for four of these RFLPs display strong nonrandom associations. However, the strongest associations were between RFLPs that are in homologous DNAs rather than between the physically closest RFLPs. From this and other evidence we argue that duplication of an ancestral hCS gene occurred at least twice, the second event being relatively recent. In other words, duplication of the hCS-L gene to produce the hCS-A gene occurred twice, so that hCS-A genes in humans may have independent origins. Our results imply that chromosomes with absent hCS genes (leading to hCS deficiency) may represent the nonduplicated ancestral unit rather than gene deletions.