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NatureVolume 466, Issue 7303, 8 July 2010, Pages 238-242

The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people(Article)

  • Behar, D.M.,
  • Yunusbayev, B.,
  • Metspalu, M.,
  • Metspalu, E.,
  • Rosset, S.,
  • Parik, J.,
  • Rootsi, S.,
  • Chaubey, G.,
  • Kutuev, I.,
  • Yudkovsky, G.,
  • Khusnutdinova, E.K.,
  • Balanovsky, O.,
  • Semino, O.,
  • Pereira, L.,
  • Comas, D.,
  • Gurwitz, D.,
  • Bonne-Tamir, B.,
  • Parfitt, T.,
  • Hammer, M.F.,
  • Skorecki, K.,
  • Villems, R.
  • View Correspondence (jump link)
  • aMolecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa 31096, Israel
  • bEstonian Biocentre and Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu, Tartu 51010, Estonia
  • cInstitute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa 450054, Russian Federation
  • dDepartment of Statistics and Operations Research, School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
  • eRappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel
  • fResearch Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow 115478, Russian Federation
  • gDipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, Università di Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy
  • hInstituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade Do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto 4200-465, Portugal
  • iFaculdade de Medicina, Universidade Do Porto, Porto 4200-319, Portugal
  • jInstitute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF), CEXS-UPF-PRBB, CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Barcelona 08003, Spain
  • kDepartment of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
  • lDepartment of Languages and Cultures of Near and Middle East, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, London WC1H 0XG, United Kingdom
  • mARL Division of Biotechnology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States

Abstract

Contemporary Jews comprise an aggregate of ethno-religious communities whose worldwide members identify with each other through various shared religious, historical and cultural traditions 1,2. Historical evidence suggests common origins in the Middle East, followed by migrations leading to the establishment of communities of Jews in Europe, Africa and Asia, in what is termed the Jewish Diaspora3-5. This complex demographic history imposes special challenges in attempting to address the genetic structure of the Jewish people6. Although many genetic studies have shed light on Jewish origins and on diseases prevalent among Jewish communities, including studies focusing on uniparentally and biparentally inherited markers7-16, genome-wide patterns of variation across the vast geographic span of Jewish Diaspora communities and their respective neighbours have yet to be addressed. Here we use high-density bead arrays to genotype individuals from 14 Jewish Diaspora communities and compare these patterns of genome-wide diversity with those from 69 Old World non-Jewish populations, of which 25 have not previously been reported. These samples were carefully chosen to provide comprehensive comparisons between Jewish and non-Jewish populations in the Diaspora, as well as with non-Jewish populations from the Middle East and north Africa. Principal component and structure-like analyses identify previously unrecognized genetic substructure within the Middle East. Most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired Diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini) cluster with neighbouring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant. These results cast light on the variegated genetic architecture of the Middle East, and trace the origins of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant. © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

Indexed keywords

EMTREE drug terms:mitochondrial DNA
GEOBASE Subject Index:demographic historydiasporadisease prevalenceethnic groupgenetic structuregenomegenotypepopulation structureprincipal component analysisreligion
EMTREE medical terms:AfricaarticleAsiacomparative studyEthiopiaethnic groupEuropegene linkage disequilibriumgenetic analysisgenomegenotypegeographic distributionhumanhuman genomeIndiaIsraeljewMiddle Eastmigrationpopulation geneticspopulation structureprincipal component analysispriority journalsingle nucleotide polymorphism
MeSH:Africa, NorthernAllelesAsiaChromosomes, Human, YDNA, MitochondrialEthiopiaEuropeGenome, HumanGenotypeGeographyHumansIndiaJewsMiddle EastPhylogenyPrincipal Component Analysis
Regional Index:Middle East

Chemicals and CAS Registry Numbers:

DNA, Mitochondrial

Funding details

Funding sponsor Funding number Acronym
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
See opportunities
Ministry of Science, Technology and Space
European Regional Development Fund
European Commission
See opportunities
1227/09
European Commission
See opportunities
CT-2007-208019
Eesti TeadusfondiETF
205419
Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation

  • 1

    Acknowledgements We thank the individuals who provided DNA samples for this study, including the National Laboratory for the Genetics of Israeli Populations; Mari Nelis, Georgi Hudjashov and Viljo Soo for conducting the autosomal genotyping; Lauri Anton for computational help. R.V. and D.M.B. thank the European Commission, Directorate-General for Research for FP7 Ecogene grant 205419. R.V. thanks the European Union, Regional Development Fund through a Centre of Excellence in Genomics grant and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies for support during the initial stage of this study. E.M. and Si.R. thank the Estonian Science Foundation for grants 7858 and 7445, respectively. K.S. thanks the Arthur and Rosalinde Gilbert Foundation fund of the American Technion Society. Sa.R. thanks the European Union for Marie Curie International Reintegration grant CT-2007-208019, and the Israeli Science Foundation for grant 1227/09. IPATIMUP is an Associate Laboratory of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education and is partly supported by Fundac¸ão para a Ciência ea Tecnologia, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.

  • ISSN: 00280836
  • CODEN: NATUA
  • Source Type: Journal
  • Original language: English
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature09103
  • PubMed ID: 20531471
  • Document Type: Article

  Behar, D. M.; Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Israel;
© Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved. © MEDLINE® is the source for the MeSH terms of this document.

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