This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Research Data Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Basu, A. Articles by Majumder, P. P. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Basu, A. Articles by Majumder, P. P. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Letter

Ethnic India: A Genomic View, With Special Reference to Peopling and Structure

¹ Anthropology & Human Genetics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta 700 108, India ² Human Genetics & Genomics Department, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Calcutta, India ³ Crystallography & Molecular Biology Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Calcutta, India

We report a comprehensive statistical analysis of data on 58 DNA markers (mitochondrial [mt], Y-chromosomal, and autosomal) and sequence data of the mtHVS1 from a large number of ethnically diverse populations of India. Our results provide genomic evidence that (1) there is an underlying unity of female lineages in India, indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small; (2) the tribal and the caste populations are highly differentiated; (3) the Austro-Asiatic tribals are the earliest settlers in India, providing support to one anthropological hypothesis while refuting some others; (4) a major wave of humans entered India through the northeast; (5) the Tibeto-Burman tribals share considerable genetic commonalities with the Austro-Asiatic tribals, supporting the hypothesis that they may have shared a common habitat in southern China, but the two groups of tribals can be differentiated on the basis of Y-chromosomal haplotypes; (6) the Dravidian tribals were possibly widespread throughout India before the arrival of the Indo-European-speaking nomads, but retreated to southern India to avoid dominance; (7) formation of populations by fission that resulted in founder and drift effects have left their imprints on the genetic structures of contemporary populations; (8) the upper castes show closer genetic affinities with Central Asian populations, although those of southern India are more distant than those of northern India; (9) historical gene flow into India has contributed to a considerable obliteration of genetic histories of contemporary populations so that there is at present no clear congruence of genetic and geographical or sociocultural affinities.

⁵ Corresponding author.
E-MAIL ppm{at}isical.ac.in; FAX 91-33-2577 3049.

[Supplemental Material is available online at www.genome.org. The following individuals kindly provided reagents, samples, or unpublished information as indicated in the paper: C.S. Chakraborty, R. Lalthantluanga, M. Mitra, A. Ramesh, N.K. Sengupta, S.K. Sil, J.R. Singh, C.M. Thakur, M.V. Usha Rani, L. Jorde, K. Kidd, A. Merriwether, A. Torroni, and C. Tyler-Smith.]

Article and publication are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.1413403.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. Sun, Q.-P. Kong, M. g. Palanichamy, S. Agrawal, H.-J. Bandelt, Y.-G. Yao, F. Khan, C.-L. Zhu, T. K. Chaudhuri, and Y.-P. Zhang The Dazzling Array of Basal Branches in the mtDNA Macrohaplogroup M from India as Inferred from Complete Genomes Mol. Biol. Evol., March 1, 2006; 23(3): 683 - 690. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. Sahoo, A. Singh, G. Himabindu, J. Banerjee, T. Sitalaximi, S. Gaikwad, R. Trivedi, P. Endicott, T. Kivisild, M. Metspalu, et al. A prehistory of Indian Y chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion scenarios PNAS, January 24, 2006; 103(4): 843 - 848. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. Anuradha, V. Radha, R. Deepa, T. Hansen, B. Carstensen, O. Pedersen, and V. Mohan A Prevalent Amino Acid Polymorphism at Codon 98 (Ala98Val) of the Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor-1{alpha} Is Associated With Maturity-Onset Diabetes of the Young and Younger Age at Onset of Type 2 Diabetes in Asian Indians Diabetes Care, October 1, 2005; 28(10): 2430 - 2435. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Basu, P. Chaudhuri, and P. P. Majumder Identification of polymorphic motifs using probabilistic search algorithms Genome Res., January 1, 2005; 15(1): 67 - 77. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. Cordaux, G. Weiss, N. Saha, and M. Stoneking The Northeast Indian Passageway: A Barrier or Corridor for Human Migrations? Mol. Biol. Evol., August 1, 2004; 21(8): 1525 - 1533. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]