When we restricted analyses to the variants most likely to affect gene function, we found a typical genome contained 149–182 sites with protein truncating variants, 10,000 to 12,000 sites with peptide-sequence-altering variants, and 459,000 to 565,000 variant sites overlapping known regulatory regions (untranslated regions (UTRs), promoters, insulators, enhancers, and transcription factor binding sites). African genomes were consistently at the high end of these ranges. The number of alleles associated with a disease or phenotype in each genome did not follow this pattern of increased diversity in Africa (Extended Data Fig. 4): we observed ∼2,000 variants per genome associated with complex traits through genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and 24–30 variants per genome implicated in rare disease through ClinVar; with European ancestry genomes at the high-end of these counts. The magnitude of this difference is unlikely to be explained by demography10,11, but instead reflects the ethnic bias of current genetic studies. We expect that improved characterization of the clinical and phenotypic consequences of non-European alleles will enable better interpretation of genomes from all individuals and populations.
