What is this project about?
Zimbabwe was the ‘gateway’ of the Bantu speaking populations migration from the north into South Africa hence important in further understanding this population migration using newer and more objective tools. Secondly, Zimbabwe has unique non-Bantu speaking populations such as the Tshwa-San who are believed to have been resident in Zimbabwe way before the arrival of the Bantu populations, thus offering unique insights into older populations of Zimbabwe. This proposal therefore aims to elucidate the genomic diversity of Zimbabwean populations and to use the whole genomic sequence (WGS) data to increase our understanding of population migration patterns in the country and the potential implications of the genomic variation on health issues in the country.
Some of the key research questions to be investigated in this study include:
1) How the populations sequenced in this study are genetically related to previously studied African populations? This would involve ancestry characterization of each population and investigating specific questions. For example: What has been the level of genomic exchange between the Tshwa-San and the Bantu-speaking Zimbabweans.
2) Migration has played a key role shaping African diversity. However, some of these migrations are uncharacterized and most are poorly described in terms of routes and timelines. A key research question will be to characterise and map migration routes such as the North to South Africa and South Africa to North Bantu migrations through Zimbabwe. When combined with results from other countries, how does Zimbabwe’s genomic diversity contribute to the understanding of the Bantu-expansion in the region.
3) How the totem system in the Bantu-speaking Zimbabweans has been effective in minimizing consanguinity in the population
Funder
AiBST
PI & Team Members
Collen Masimirembwa (PI)
Ashton Murwira (Team Member)
Mbonisi Nyathi (Team Member)
Zedias Chikwambi (Team Member)
Patience Kuona (Team Member)
RaivaSimbi (Team Member)
Menard Mutenherwa (Team Member)
Tinashe Mazhindu (Team Member)
Ntokozo Ndlovu (Team Member)
Margaret Borok (Team Member)
Nyasha Mapira (Student)
Collaborators
Michele Ramsey
Ananyo Choudhury
Period
2024 - Present
ZiGeP
Investigating the Genomic Diversity of Zimbabwean populations - implications for population migrations and health
Project Media
Publications
None
The Aim
To establish a reference biorepository of samples and a DNA sequence database of more than 30 000 Zimbabweans from across its 59 districts.
Navigate Between Projects
Objectives
Identification of genetic variants that have not been seen in the current reference human genome (novel variation). Also, identifying variants that show extreme difference in occurrence between these African populations (highly divergent variants).
Studying population structure admixture and ancestry: We aim to study how Zimbabwean populations are related to each other and to other African populations in order to generate better models for the peoples of different parts of the continent. This would include delineation of the timelines and routes of key migration events.
Studying the distribution of medically relevant variation (including variant classification and characterization) in populations on the continent.
To explore the validity of the use of totems in Zimbabwe as a cultural innovation to minimize consanguinity in the population