title: Genes mirror geography within Europe.
abstract: Understanding the genetic structure of human populations is of fundamental interest to medical, forensic and anthropological sciences. Advances in high-throughput genotyping technology have markedly improved our understanding of global patterns of human genetic variation and suggest the potential to use large samples to uncover variation among closely spaced populations. Here we characterize genetic variation in a sample of 3,000 European individuals genotyped at over half a million variable DNA sites in the human genome. Despite low average levels of genetic differentiation among Europeans, we find a close correspondence between genetic and geographic distances; indeed, a geographical map of Europe arises naturally as an efficient two-dimensional summary of genetic variation in Europeans. The results emphasize that when mapping the genetic basis of a disease phenotype, spurious associations can arise if genetic structure is not properly accounted for. In addition, the results are relevant to the prospects of genetic ancestry testing; an individual's DNA can be used to infer their geographic origin with surprising accuracy-often to within a few hundred kilometres.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Interdepartmental Program in Bioinformatics, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. jnovembre@ucla.edu
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Novembre
authors.forename: Toby
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Katarzyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bryc
authors.forename: Zoltán
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Kutalik
authors.forename: Adam R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Boyko
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Auton
authors.forename: Amit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Indap
authors.forename: Karen S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bergmann
authors.forename: Matthew R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stephens
authors.forename: Carlos D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Bustamante