The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event

Both the extent and location of the maternal ancestral deme from which the Ashkenazi Jewry arose remain obscure. Here, using complete sequences of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we show that close to one-half of Ashkenazi Jews, estimated at 8,000,000 people, can be traced back t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Behar, DM (author)
Other Authors: Metspalu, E (author), Kivisild, T (author), Achilli, A (author), Hadid, Y (author), Tzur, S (author), Pereira, L (author), Amorim, A (author), Quintana-Murci, L (author), Majamaa, K (author), Herrnstadt, C (author), Howell, N (author), Balanovsky, O (author), Kutuev, I (author), Pshenichnov, A (author), Gurwitz, D (author), Bonne-Tamir, B (author), Torroni, A (author), Villems, R (author), Skorecki, K (author)
Format: article
Language:eng
Published: 2006
Subjects:
Base Sequence
DNA Mitochondrial/genetics
Female
Founder Effect
Humans
Jews/classification
Jews/ethnology
Jews/genetics
Male
Molecular Sequence Data
Phylogeny
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10216/109578
Country:Portugal
Oai:oai:repositorio-aberto.up.pt:10216/109578
Description
Summary:Both the extent and location of the maternal ancestral deme from which the Ashkenazi Jewry arose remain obscure. Here, using complete sequences of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we show that close to one-half of Ashkenazi Jews, estimated at 8,000,000 people, can be traced back to only 4 women carrying distinct mtDNAs that are virtually absent in other populations, with the important exception of low frequencies among non-Ashkenazi Jews. We conclude that four founding mtDNAs, likely of Near Eastern ancestry, underwent major expansion(s) in Europe within the past millennium.

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