title: The matrilineal ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: portrait of a recent founder event.
abstract: Both the extent and location of the maternal ancestral deme from which the Ashkenazi Jewry arose remain obscure. Here, using complete sequences of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we show that close to one-half of Ashkenazi Jews, estimated at 8,000,000 people, can be traced back to only 4 women carrying distinct mtDNAs that are virtually absent in other populations, with the important exception of low frequencies among non-Ashkenazi Jews. We conclude that four founding mtDNAs, likely of Near Eastern ancestry, underwent major expansion(s) in Europe within the past millennium.
authors.affiliation: Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion and Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Doron M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Behar
authors.forename: Ene
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Metspalu
authors.forename: Toomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kivisild
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Achilli
authors.forename: Yarin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hadid
authors.forename: Shay
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tzur
authors.forename: Luisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Amorim
authors.forename: Lluis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Quintana-Murci
authors.forename: Kari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Majamaa
authors.forename: Corinna
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Herrnstadt
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Howell
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Balanovsky
authors.forename: Ildus
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kutuev
authors.forename: Andrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pshenichnov
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gurwitz
authors.forename: Batsheva
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bonne-Tamir
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Torroni
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Villems
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Skorecki
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D018703:Founder Effect; D006801:Humans; D007585:Jews / Q000145:classification* / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000235:genetics; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial