title: The dual origin of Tati-speakers from Dagestan as written in the genealogy of uniparental variants.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Tat language is classified in an Iranian subbranch of the Indo-European family. It is spoken in the Caucasus and in the West Caspian region by populations with heterogeneous cultural traditions and religion whose ancestry is unknown. The aim of this study is to get a first insight about the genetic history of this peculiar linguistic group.
  
  
  METHODS
  We investigated the uniparental gene pools, defined by NRY and mtDNA high-resolution markers, in two Tati-speaking communities from Dagestan: Mountain Jews or Juhur, who speak the Judeo-Tat dialect, and the Tats, who speak the Muslim-Tat dialect. The samples have been collected in monoethnic rural villages and selected on the basis of genealogical relationships. A novel approach aimed at resolving cryptic cases in the recent history of human populations, which combines the properties of uniparental genetic markers with the potential of "forward-in-time" computer simulations, is presented.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Judeo-Tats emerged as a group with tight matrilineal genetic legacy who separated early from other Jewish communities. Tats exhibited genetic signals of a much longer in situ evolution, which appear as substantially unlinked with other Indo-Iranian enclaves in the Caucasus.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The independent demographic histories of the two samples, with mutually reversed profiles at paternally and maternally transmitted genetic systems, suggest that geographic proximity and linguistic assimilation of Tati-speakers from Dagestan do not reflect a common ancestry.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy. stef.bertoncini@gmail.com
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bertoncini
authors.forename: Kazima
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bulayeva
authors.forename: Gianmarco
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ferri
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pagani
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Caciagli
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Taglioli
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Semyonov
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Bulayev
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Paoli
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tofanelli
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y / Q000235:genetics*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D003610:Dagestan; D005260:Female; D005819:Genetic Markers; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D005819:Genetic Markers