Ashkenazi levites' "Y modal haplotype" (LMH)-- an artificially created phenomenon?
The article on the Y chromosomes of Ashkenazi Levites (Behar et al., 2003. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 73, 768-779) is the fourth in a series on the Y chromosomes of the three Jewish male castes: Cohanim (priests), Levites (priests' helpers) and Israelites (lay people). It became apparent that there is a problem with omission of samples when the second article "Origins of Old Testament priests" (Thomas et al., 1998. Nature 394, 138-140) was published. In the fourth article a remarkable 55% of the Ashkenazi Levite samples from the earlier 1998 study are not included. This causes the "Levite modal haplotype" to double its frequency from 21% of the Ashkenazi Levite sample in 1998 to 42% of the Ashkenazi Levite sample in 2003. The authors offer three main explanations: (1) The studies are independent using different sample sets.(2) Typing errors and poor quality exclude samples from future studies.(3) Correction of typing errors means that some samples are classified under different haplotypes. The explanations offered to the problem of omitting samples from subsequent studies after their haplotypes or partial haplotypes are known, are not convincing. Consequently their sample sets cannot be considered random and non-biased. At the least, these laboratories have bad practices of sample handling and many typing errors, which are enough to invalidate their studies.
Zoossmann-Diskin
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Department of Haematology and Genetic Pathology, Flinders University School of Medicine, Bedford Park SA 5042, Australia. avshalom.zoossmann-diskin@flinders.edu.au
D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D007585:Jews / Q000235:genetics*; D007599:Judaism; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018401:Sample Size; D013048:Specimen Handling