title: Two sources of the Russian patrilineal heritage in their Eurasian context.
abstract: Progress in the mapping of population genetic substructure provides a core source of data for the reconstruction of the demographic history of our species and for the discovery of common signals relevant to disease research: These two aspects of enquiry overlap in their empirical data content and are especially informative at continental and subcontinental levels. In the present study of the variation of the Y chromosome pool of ethnic Russians, we show that the patrilineages within the pre-Ivan the Terrible historic borders of Russia have two main distinct sources. One of these antedates the linguistic split between West and East Slavonic-speaking people and is common for the two groups; the other is genetically highlighted by the pre-eminence of haplogroup (hg) N3 and is most parsimoniously explained by extensive assimilation of (or language change in) northeastern indigenous Finno-Ugric tribes. Although hg N3 is common for both East European and Siberian Y chromosomes, other typically Siberian or Mongolian hgs (Q and C) have negligible influence within the studied Russian Y chromosome pool. The distribution of all frequent Y chromosome haplogroups (which account for 95% of the Y chromosomal spectrum in Russians) follows a similar north-south clinal pattern among autosomal markers, apparent from synthetic maps. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) plots comparing intra ethnic and interethnic variation of Y chromosome in Europe show that although well detectable, intraethnic variation signals do not cross interethnic borders, except between Poles, Ukrainians, and central-southern Russians, thereby revealing their overwhelmingly shared patrilineal ancestry.
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, 115478 Moscow, Russia. balanovsky@inbox.ru
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Balanovsky
authors.forename: Siiri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rootsi
authors.forename: Andrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pshenichnov
authors.forename: Toomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kivisild
authors.forename: Michail
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Churnosov
authors.forename: Irina
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Evseeva
authors.forename: Elvira
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pocheshkhova
authors.forename: Margarita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boldyreva
authors.forename: Nikolay
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yankovsky
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Balanovska
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Villems
mesh_terms: D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y; D005006:Ethnicity; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006801:Humans; D012426:Russia; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*