title: The Genetics of Bene Israel from India Reveals Both Substantial Jewish and Indian Ancestry.
abstract: The Bene Israel Jewish community from West India is a unique population whose history before the 18th century remains largely unknown. Bene Israel members consider themselves as descendants of Jews, yet the identity of Jewish ancestors and their arrival time to India are unknown, with speculations on arrival time varying between the 8th century BCE and the 6th century CE. Here, we characterize the genetic history of Bene Israel by collecting and genotyping 18 Bene Israel individuals. Combining with 486 individuals from 41 other Jewish, Indian and Pakistani populations, and additional individuals from worldwide populations, we conducted comprehensive genome-wide analyses based on FST, principal component analysis, ADMIXTURE, identity-by-descent sharing, admixture linkage disequilibrium decay, haplotype sharing and allele sharing autocorrelation decay, as well as contrasted patterns between the X chromosome and the autosomes. The genetics of Bene Israel individuals resemble local Indian populations, while at the same time constituting a clearly separated and unique population in India. They are unique among Indian and Pakistani populations we analyzed in sharing considerable genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations. Putting together the results from all analyses point to Bene Israel being an admixed population with both Jewish and Indian ancestry, with the genetic contribution of each of these ancestral populations being substantial. The admixture took place in the last millennium, about 19-33 generations ago. It involved Middle-Eastern Jews and was sex-biased, with more male Jewish and local female contribution. It was followed by a population bottleneck and high endogamy, which can lead to increased prevalence of recessive diseases in this population. This study provides an example of how genetic analysis advances our knowledge of human history in cases where other disciplines lack the relevant data to do so.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America.|Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Yedael Y
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Waldman
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Arjun
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Biddanda
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Natalie R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Billing-Ross
authors.affiliation: Danek Gertner Institute of Human Genetics, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel.|Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Maya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dubrovsky
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Christopher L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Carole
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Oddoux
authors.affiliation: Danek Gertner Institute of Human Genetics, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel.|Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Eitan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.affiliation: Departments of Medicine and Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, United States of America.|Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Gil
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Atzmon
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel.|The Blavatnik School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel.|International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Eran
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Halperin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, United States of America.|Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Harry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ostrer
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Alon
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Keinan
mesh_terms: D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005828:Genetics, Population; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D005838:Genotype; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007557:Israel; D007585:Jews / Q000235:genetics*; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium; D008297:Male; D010154:Pakistan