title: Uniparental genetic heritage of belarusians: encounter of rare middle eastern matrilineages with a central European mitochondrial DNA pool.
abstract: Ethnic Belarusians make up more than 80% of the nine and half million people inhabiting the Republic of Belarus. Belarusians together with Ukrainians and Russians represent the East Slavic linguistic group, largest both in numbers and territory, inhabiting East Europe alongside Baltic-, Finno-Permic- and Turkic-speaking people. Till date, only a limited number of low resolution genetic studies have been performed on this population. Therefore, with the phylogeographic analysis of 565 Y-chromosomes and 267 mitochondrial DNAs from six well covered geographic sub-regions of Belarus we strove to complement the existing genetic profile of eastern Europeans. Our results reveal that around 80% of the paternal Belarusian gene pool is composed of R1a, I2a and N1c Y-chromosome haplogroups - a profile which is very similar to the two other eastern European populations - Ukrainians and Russians. The maternal Belarusian gene pool encompasses a full range of West Eurasian haplogroups and agrees well with the genetic structure of central-east European populations. Our data attest that latitudinal gradients characterize the variation of the uniparentally transmitted gene pools of modern Belarusians. In particular, the Y-chromosome reflects movements of people in central-east Europe, starting probably as early as the beginning of the Holocene. Furthermore, the matrilineal legacy of Belarusians retains two rare mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, N1a3 and N3, whose phylogeographies were explored in detail after de novo sequencing of 20 and 13 complete mitogenomes, respectively, from all over Eurasia. Our phylogeographic analyses reveal that two mitochondrial DNA lineages, N3 and N1a3, both of Middle Eastern origin, might mark distinct events of matrilineal gene flow to Europe: during the mid-Holocene period and around the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, respectively.
authors.affiliation: Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia. lkushniarevich@gmail.com
authors.forename: Alena
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kushniarevich
authors.forename: Larysa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sivitskaya
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Danilenko
authors.forename: Tadeush
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Novogrodskii
authors.forename: Iosif
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tsybovsky
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kiseleva
authors.forename: Svetlana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kotova
authors.forename: Gyaneshwer
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chaubey
authors.forename: Ene
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Metspalu
authors.forename: Hovhannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sahakyan
authors.forename: Ardeshir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bahmanimehr
authors.forename: Maere
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reidla
authors.forename: Siiri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rootsi
authors.forename: Jüri
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Parik
authors.forename: Tuuli
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Reisberg
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Achilli
authors.forename: Baharak
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hooshiar Kashani
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gandini
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Olivieri
authors.forename: Doron M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Behar
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Torroni
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Davydenko
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Villems
mesh_terms: D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics; D005788:Gene Pool; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010802:Phylogeny; D058974:Phylogeography; D002094:Republic of Belarus; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial