Project description:The Kashmiri population is an ethno-linguistic group that resides in the Kashmir Valley in northern India. A longstanding hypothesis is that this population derives ancestry from Jewish and/or Greek sources. There is historical and archaeological evidence of ancient Greek presence in India and Kashmir. Further, some historical accounts suggest ancient Hebrew ancestry as well. To date, it has not been determined whether signatures of Greek or Jewish admixture can be detected in the Kashmiri population. Using genome-wide genotyping and admixture detection methods, we determined there are no significant or substantial signs of Greek or Jewish admixture in modern-day Kashmiris. The ancestry of Kashmiri Tibetans was also determined, which showed signs of admixture with populations from northern India and west Eurasia. These results contribute to our understanding of the existing population structure in northern India and its surrounding geographical areas.
Project description:Genome-wide age-associated methylation signatures of 485,000 CpG sites were profiled in 192 individuals, age 6-85, of Northern European ancestry were profiled using the Illumina HM450 array.
Project description:Myanmar locates in the crossroads of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, and is known for high culture diversity in different ethnic groups. It is considered to be important for understanding human evolutionary history and genetic diversity in East Eurasia. However, relatively few studies have examined the population structure and demographic history in Myanmar to date. In this study, we analyzed more than 220,000 genome-wide SNPs in 175 new samples of five ethnic groups from Myanmar and compared them with the published data. Our results showed that the Myanmar population is intricately substructured, with the main observed clusters corresponding roughly to western/northern highlanders (Chin, Naga, and Jingpo) and central/southern lowlanders (Bamar and Rakhine). The gene flow inferred from South Asia has a substantial influence (~11%) on the gene pool of central/southern lowlanders rather than western/northern highlanders. The genetic admixture is dated around 650 years ago. These findings suggest that the genome-wide variation in Myanmar was likely shaped by the linguistic, cultural, and historical changes.
Project description:Southern California (USA) populations of the intertidal marine snail Chlorostoma (formerly Tegula) funebralis are generally exposed to higher air and water temperatures than northern California populations. Previous studies have shown that southern populations are more tolerant of heat stress than northern populations. To assess the potential role of gene regulation in these regional differences, we examined transcriptome responses to thermal stress in two southern and two northern populations of C. funebralis. Snails from the four populations were acclimated to a common lab environment, exposed to a heat stress representative of natural low tide conditions, and then analyzed using RNA-Seq to characterize changes in gene expression associated with stress and differences in expression across geographic regions. Changes in expression following stress were dominated by genes involved in apoptosis, the inflammatory response, response to mis and unfolded proteins, and ubiquitination of proteins. Heat shock proteins (Hsps) were up-regulated in both northern and southern populations. However, while the magnitude of the response was significantly greater in northern populations for the majority of Hsp70s, the southern populations showed a greater up-regulation for roughly half of the Hsp40s, which are co-chaperones for Hsp70s. Differential expression analysis of the control versus treatment genes in the northern and southern populations respectively revealed that 56 genes, many involved in the inflammation and immune response, responded to heat stress only in the northern populations. Moreover, several of the molecular chaperones and antioxidant genes that were not differentially expressed in the southern populations instead showed higher constitutive expression under control conditions compared to the northern populations. The expression levels of some of these constitutive genes such as superoxide dismutase were also found to positively correlate with survival following heat stress. This suggests that expression of these genes has evolved a degree of “frontloading” that may contribute to the higher thermal tolerance of southern populations.