Population Genomic Diversity of France

Having access to DNA sequences from individuals that share common ancestry with patients is of interest when analysing individual genomes for diagnoses. Information regarding allele frequency distribution in the same geographic areas where patients have ancestry will be necessary to help select the variants that are the most likely involved in disease and should hence be tested in functional assays. To provide such a general population panel for France, the POPGEN project will select 10,000 individuals from CONSTANCES cohort with ancestry in different regions of France outside western part. These participants will have their DNA extracted from salivary kits and genotyped using SNP-chip. Among these 10,000 individuals, 4,000 individuals will have their whole genome sequenced. This study is one of the four pilot projects of the France Genomic Medicine plan (FMG 2025). The FMG2025 plan aims at introducing genome sequencing in the routine clinical practice to accelerate and improve diagnoses. The POPGEN project will provide the required references from the general French population to help filter out common variants from the genomes of patients.