Title |
Reconstructing Roma History from Genome-Wide Data
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Published in |
PLOS ONE, March 2013
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DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0058633 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Priya Moorjani, Nick Patterson, Po-Ru Loh, Mark Lipson, Péter Kisfali, Bela I. Melegh, Michael Bonin, Ľudevít Kádaši, Olaf Rieß, Bonnie Berger, David Reich, Béla Melegh |
Abstract |
The Roma people, living throughout Europe and West Asia, are a diverse population linked by the Romani language and culture. Previous linguistic and genetic studies have suggested that the Roma migrated into Europe from South Asia about 1,000-1,500 years ago. Genetic inferences about Roma history have mostly focused on the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA. To explore what additional information can be learned from genome-wide data, we analyzed data from six Roma groups that we genotyped at hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We estimate that the Roma harbor about 80% West Eurasian ancestry-derived from a combination of European and South Asian sources-and that the date of admixture of South Asian and European ancestry was about 850 years before present. We provide evidence for Eastern Europe being a major source of European ancestry, and North-west India being a major source of the South Asian ancestry in the Roma. By computing allele sharing as a measure of linkage disequilibrium, we estimate that the migration of Roma out of the Indian subcontinent was accompanied by a severe founder event, which appears to have been followed by a major demographic expansion after the arrival in Europe. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
India | 9 | 28% |
United States | 4 | 13% |
Australia | 1 | 3% |
New Zealand | 1 | 3% |
United Kingdom | 1 | 3% |
Norway | 1 | 3% |
Unknown | 15 | 47% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 28 | 88% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 2 | 6% |
Scientists | 2 | 6% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
France | 1 | <1% |
Brazil | 1 | <1% |
Romania | 1 | <1% |
Spain | 1 | <1% |
Japan | 1 | <1% |
United States | 1 | <1% |
Unknown | 111 | 95% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 30 | 26% |
Researcher | 23 | 20% |
Student > Bachelor | 14 | 12% |
Student > Master | 10 | 9% |
Professor | 7 | 6% |
Other | 20 | 17% |
Unknown | 13 | 11% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 46 | 39% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 20 | 17% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 9 | 8% |
Social Sciences | 8 | 7% |
Computer Science | 4 | 3% |
Other | 15 | 13% |
Unknown | 15 | 13% |