Evaluation of tribal diversity of pashtuns of bajaur agency,north-west Pakistan,on the basis of allelic polymorphisms at ABO and Rh loci

The present study was aimed at evaluating the tribal diversity of pashtuns currently residing in bajaur agency,north-west pakistan. the immunogenetic markers of abo and rh loci were phenotyped in 1200 individuals selected randomly from bajaur. in these data,tarkani and uthman khel emerged as the major tribes,while safi and shinwari were in minor representation. additionally,there were at least 25 sub-tribes. wide-variation was evident at the abo and rh allelic systems in the tarkanis compared to the uthman khels. the heterozygosity at both loci was higher in the samples ascertained from tarkanis in comparison to uthman khels. the estimation of nei's genetic distances (da) revealed close affinities between umer khel and sarkani khel tribes of uthman khels (da=0.003),and between salarzi and miangan tribes of tarkanis (da=0.002). moreover,the coefficient of gene differentiation (gst) and absolute gene diversity (dst) were higher in tarkanis compared to those recorded for the uthman khels. collectively,these data illustrated high variability in the pashtun tribes of bajaur in terms of phenotypic proportions,allelic frequencies and heterozygosites at the studied loci. further studies employing highly polymorphic genetic markers are required to fully appreciate the diversification of these tribes and to understand the micro-evolutionary processes taking place therein.