title: A counter-clockwise northern route of the Y-chromosome haplogroup N from Southeast Asia towards Europe.
abstract: A large part of Y chromosome lineages in East European and East Asian human populations belong to haplogroup (hg) NO, which is composed of two sister clades N-M231 and O-M175. The O-clade is relatively old (around 30 thousand years (ky)) and encompasses the vast majority of east and Southeast Asian male lineages, as well as significant proportion of those in Oceanian males. On the other hand, our detailed analysis of hg N suggests that its high frequency in east Europe is due to its more recent expansion westward on a counter-clock northern route from inner Asia/southern Siberia, approximately 12-14 ky ago. The widespread presence of hg N in Siberia, together with its absence in Native Americans, implies its spread happened after the founder event for the Americas. The most frequent subclade N3, arose probably in the region of present day China, and subsequently experienced serial bottlenecks in Siberia and secondary expansions in eastern Europe. Another branch, N2, forms two distinctive subclusters of STR haplotypes, Asian (N2-A) and European (N2-E), the latter now mostly distributed in Finno-Ugric and related populations. These phylogeographic patterns provide evidence consistent with male-mediated counter-clockwise late Pleistocene-Holocene migratory trajectories toward Northwestern Europe from an ancestral East Asian source of Paleolithic heritage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia. sroots@ebc.ee
authors.forename: Siiri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rootsi
authors.forename: Lev A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Zhivotovsky
authors.forename: Marian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Baldovic
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kayser
authors.forename: Ildus A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Kutuev
authors.forename: Rita
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Khusainova
authors.forename: Marina A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Bermisheva
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gubina
authors.forename: Sardana A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Fedorova
authors.forename: Anne-Mai
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Ilumäe
authors.forename: Elza K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Khusnutdinova
authors.forename: Mikhail I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Voevoda
authors.forename: Ludmila P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Osipova
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stoneking
authors.forename: Alice A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ferak
authors.forename: Jüri
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Parik
authors.forename: Toomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kivisild
authors.forename: Peter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Underhill
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Villems
mesh_terms: D001210:Asia, Southeastern; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D005061:Europe, Eastern; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA