title: Correlation between genetic and geographic structure in Europe.
abstract: Understanding the genetic structure of the European population is important, not only from a historical perspective, but also for the appropriate design and interpretation of genetic epidemiological studies. Previous population genetic analyses with autosomal markers in Europe either had a wide geographic but narrow genomic coverage [1, 2], or vice versa [3-6]. We therefore investigated Affymetrix GeneChip 500K genotype data from 2,514 individuals belonging to 23 different subpopulations, widely spread over Europe. Although we found only a low level of genetic differentiation between subpopulations, the existing differences were characterized by a strong continent-wide correlation between geographic and genetic distance. Furthermore, mean heterozygosity was larger, and mean linkage disequilibrium smaller, in southern as compared to northern Europe. Both parameters clearly showed a clinal distribution that provided evidence for a spatial continuity of genetic diversity in Europe. Our comprehensive genetic data are thus compatible with expectations based upon European population history, including the hypotheses of a south-north expansion and/or a larger effective population size in southern than in northern Europe. By including the widely used CEPH from Utah (CEU) samples into our analysis, we could show that these individuals represent northern and western Europeans reasonably well, thereby confirming their assumed regional ancestry.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Molecular Biology, Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, 3000 CA Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Lao
authors.forename: Timothy T
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nothnagel
authors.forename: Olaf
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Junge
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Freitag-Wolf
authors.forename: Amke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caliebe
authors.forename: Miroslava
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Balascakova
authors.forename: Jaume
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bertranpetit
authors.forename: Laurence A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Bindoff
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Comas
authors.forename: Gunilla
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Holmlund
authors.forename: Anastasia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kouvatsi
authors.forename: Milan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Macek
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mollet
authors.forename: Walther
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Parson
authors.forename: Jukka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Palo
authors.forename: Rafal
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ploski
authors.forename: Antti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sajantila
authors.forename: Adriano
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tagliabracci
authors.forename: Ulrik
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Gether
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Werge
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rivadeneira
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hofman
authors.forename: André G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Uitterlinden
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gieger
authors.forename: Heinz-Erich
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Wichmann
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rüther
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schreiber
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nürnberg
authors.forename: Matthew R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Krawczak
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kayser
mesh_terms: D005060:Europe; D005828:Genetics, Population; D005838:Genotype; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*