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Exploring European ancestry among the Kalash population: a mitogenomic perspective.

ABSTRACT: With a population of around 4 000 individuals, the Kalash people have been living in the Hindu-Kush mountain valleys of present-day northern Pakistan for centuries. Due to their mysterious origin and fairer European complexion, the genetic history of this ethnic group has been investigated previously using different markers. To date, however, the maternal genetic architecture has not been systematically dissected based on high-resolution complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes), making their maternal genetic history, especially their genetic connection with Europeans from a matrilineal perspective, unclear. To unravel this issue, we analyzed mitogenome data of 34 Kalash samples together with 6 075 individuals from across Eurasia. Our results indicated exclusive western Eurasian origin of the Kalash people, represented by eight haplogroups. Among these haplogroups, J2b1a7a and R0a5a (accounting for ~50% of the Kalash gene pool) displayed in situ differentiations in the Kalash and could be traced to the Mediterranean region. Age estimations suggested these haplogroups arose in the Kalash population ~2.26 and 3.01 thousand years ago (kya), a time frame consistent with the invasion of Alexander III of Macedon to the region. One possible explanation for the maternal genetic contribution from Europeans to the Kalash people would be the involvement of women in foreign campaigns of ancient Greek warfare, followed by a founder effect. Our study thus sheds important light on the genetic origin of the Kalash community of Pakistan.

SUBMITTER: Rahman ZU

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7475010 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Exploring European ancestry among the Kalash population: a mitogenomic perspective.

Rahman Zia Ur ZU Li Yu-Chun YC Tian Jiao-Yang JY Kong Qing-Peng QP

Zoological research 20200901 5

With a population of around 4 000 individuals, the Kalash people have been living in the Hindu-Kush mountain valleys of present-day northern Pakistan for centuries. Due to their mysterious origin and fairer European complexion, the genetic history of this ethnic group has been investigated previously using different markers. To date, however, the maternal genetic architecture has not been systematically dissected based on high-resolution complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes), making their ...[more]

PMID: 32692490

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Project description:BackgroundThe teleost order Lophiiformes, commonly known as the anglerfishes, contains a diverse array of marine fishes, ranging from benthic shallow-water dwellers to highly modified deep-sea midwater species. They comprise 321 living species placed in 68 genera, 18 families and 5 suborders, but approximately half of the species diversity is occupied by deep-sea ceratioids distributed among 11 families. The evolutionary origins of such remarkable habitat and species diversity, however, remain elusive because of the lack of fresh material for a majority of the deep-sea ceratioids and incompleteness of the fossil record across all of the Lophiiformes. To obtain a comprehensive picture of the phylogeny and evolutionary history of the anglerfishes, we assembled whole mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequences from 39 lophiiforms (33 newly determined during this study) representing all five suborders and 17 of the 18 families. Sequences of 77 higher teleosts including the 39 lophiiform sequences were unambiguously aligned and subjected to phylogenetic analysis and divergence time estimation.ResultsPartitioned maximum likelihood analysis confidently recovered monophyly for all of the higher taxa (including the order itself) with the exception of the Thaumatichthyidae (Lasiognathus was deeply nested within the Oneirodidae). The mitogenomic trees strongly support the most basal and an apical position of the Lophioidei and a clade comprising Chaunacoidei + Ceratioidei, respectively, although alternative phylogenetic positions of the remaining two suborders (Antennarioidei and Ogcocephaloidei) with respect to the above two lineages are statistically indistinguishable. While morphology-based intra-subordinal relationships for relatively shallow, benthic dwellers (Lophioidei, Antennarioidei, Ogcocephaloidei, Chaunacoidei) are either congruent with or statistically indistinguishable from the present mitogenomic tree, those of the principally deep-sea midwater dwellers (Ceratioidei) cannot be reconciled with the molecular phylogeny. A relaxed molecular-clock Bayesian analysis of the divergence times suggests that all of the subordinal diversifications have occurred during a relatively short time period between 100 and 130 Myr ago (early to mid Cretaceous).ConclusionsThe mitogenomic analyses revealed previously unappreciated phylogenetic relationships among the lophiiform suborders and ceratioid familes. Although the latter relationships cannot be reconciled with the earlier hypotheses based on morphology, we found that simple exclusion of the reductive or simplified characters can alleviate some of the conflict. The acquisition of novel features, such as male dwarfism, bioluminescent lures, and unique reproductive modes allowed the deep-sea ceratioids to diversify rapidly in a largely unexploited, food-poor bathypelagic zone (200-2000 m depth) relative to the other lophiiforms occurring in shallow coastal areas.

Dataset Information

Exploring European ancestry among the Kalash population: a mitogenomic perspective.

Publications

Exploring European ancestry among the Kalash population: a mitogenomic perspective.

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