PGG.Population database documents 6,301 genomes representing 388 global populations from 107 countries, and provides necessary information for researchers and medical doctors to understand genomic diversity and genetic ancestry of human populations. We included miscellaneous functions and a friendly graphical user interface to visualize genomic diversity, population relationship (genetic affinity), ancestral makeup, footprints of natural selection, and population history etc. Moreover, PGG.Population provides a dynamic feature for users to analyze and compare their data to population samples in the database which are updated timely when new data are available. The long-term aim of the PGG.Population, together with the joint efforts from other researchers who publish or re-publish their data and visualize results in a dynamic style via online illustration in our database, is to bridge evolutionary genetic studies to future precision medicine.
Officially set up in January 2012 by Prof. Dr. Shuhua Xu at the Partner Institute for Computational Biology, The Max Planck Independent Research Group on Population Genomics (PGG) focused on population genomics research of human admixture history and biological adaptation to the local environment. Population Genomics is a disciplinary to infer population genetic and evolutionary parameters from genome-wide data sets. The ultimate goal of this research group is to understand microevolution mechanisms in human, while genetic admixture was taken as a cut-in point to pursue this ambition. Dr. Xu's group is using computational approaches and developing new methods to dissect genetic architecture of human populations, quantitatively characterize their admixture features, and reveal their migration history and adaptive divergence.
The Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB13040100) and Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences (QYZDJ-SSW-SYS009) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to S.X., the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant (91331204 and 31711530221 to S.X.; 31501011 to Y.L.), the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (31525014 to S.X.), the Program of Shanghai Academic Research Leader (16XD1404700 to S.X.), and the National Key Research and Development Program (2016YFC0906403 to S.X.); Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (STCSM) (14YF1406800 to Y.L.); S.X. is Max-Planck Independent Research Group Leader and member of CAS Youth Innovation Promotion Association. S.X. also gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Program for Top-notch Young Innovative Talents of The "Wanren Jihua" Project. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.