The Contribution of Genetic Diversity to Subdivide Populations Living in the Silk Road of China |
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| Authors: | Zhe Zhang Shuguang Wei Hongsheng Gui Zuyi Yuan Shengbin Li |
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| Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Environment and Gene Related to Diseases, Ministry of Education, College of Medicine, Xi''an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, China.; 2. The Key Laboratory of National Ministry of Health for Forensic Sciences, College of Medicine and Forensics, Xi''an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, China.; University of Utah, United States of America, |
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| Abstract: | There are several indigenous ethnic populations along the silk road in the Northwest of China that display clear differences in culture and social customs, perhaps as a result of geographic isolation and different linguistic traditions. However, extensive trade and other interactions probably facilitated the admixture of different gene pools between these populations over the last two millennia. To further explore the evolutionary relationships of the 13 ethnic populations residing in Northwest China and to reveal the features of population admixture, the 9 most-commonly employed CODIS loci (D3S1358, TH01, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820, CSF1PO, vWA, TPOX, FGA) were selected for genotyping and further analysis. Phylogenetic tree and principal component analysis revealed clear pattern of population differentiation between 4 populations living in Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region and other 9 populations dwelled in the upper regions of Silk Road. R matrix regression showed high-level gene flow and population admixture dose exist among these ethic populations in the Northwest region of China. Furthermore, the Mantel test suggests that larger percent of genetic variance (21.58% versus 2.3%) can be explained by geographic isolation than linguistic barriers, which matched with the contribution of geographic factors to other world populations. |
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