Genetic affinities of Ukrainians from the maternal perspective

• Published in: American Journal of Physical Anthropology
• Main Authors: Pshenichnov, Andrey, Balanovsky, Oleg, Utevska, Olga, Metspalu, Ene, Zaporozhchenko, Valery, Agdzhoyan, Anastasia, Churnosov, Mikhail, Atramentova, Lyubov, Balanovska, Elena
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2013
• Subjects: Cornish; nenets; saami
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.22371; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fajpa.22371; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ajpa.22371

ABSTRACT The area of what is now the Ukraine has been the arena of large‐scale demographic processes that may have left their traces in the contemporary gene pool of Ukrainians. In this study, we present new mitochondrial DNA data for 607 Ukrainians (hypervariable segment I sequences and coding region polymorphisms). To study the maternal affinities of Ukrainians at the level of separate mitochondrial haplotypes, we apply an original technique, the haplotype co‐occurrence analysis . About 20% of the Ukrainian maternal gene pool is represented by lineages highly specific to Ukrainians, but is scarcely found in other populations. About 9% of Ukrainian mtDNA lineages are typical for peoples of the Volga region. We also identified minor gene pool strata (1.6–3.3%), each of which is common in Lithuanians, Estonians, Saami, Nenets, Cornish, and the populations of the North Caucasus. Am J Phys Anthropol 152:543–550, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.