Alu insertion polymorphisms and an assessment of the genetic contribution of Central Asia to Anatolia with respect to the Balkans

Abstract

In the evolutionary history of modern humans, Anatolia acted as a bridge between the Caucasus, the Near East, and Europe. Because of its geographical location, Anatolia was subject to migrations from multiple different regions throughout time. The last, well-known migration was the movement of Turkic speaking, nomadic groups from Central Asia. They invaded Anatolia and then the language of the region was gradually replaced by the Turkic language. In the present study, insertion frequencies of 10 Alu loci (A25 = 0.07, APO = 0.96, TPA25 = 0.44, ACE = 0.37, B65 = 0.57, PV92 = 0.18, FXIIIB = 0.52, D1 = 0.40, HS4.32 = 0.66, and HS4.69 = 0.30) have been determined in the Anatolian population. Together with the data compiled from other databases, the similarity of the Anatolian population to that of the Balkans and Central Asia has been visualized by multidimensional scaling method. Analysis suggested that, genetically, Anatolia is more closely related with the Balkan populations than to the Central Asian populations. Central Asian contribution to Anatolia with respect to the Balkans was quantified with an admixture analysis. Furthermore, the association between the Central Asian contribution and the language replacement episode was examined by comparative analysis of the Central Asian contribution to Anatolia, Azerbaijan (another Turkic speaking country) and their neighbors. In the present study, the Central Asian contribution to Anatolia was estimated as 13%. This was the lowest value among the populations analyzed. This observation may be explained by Anatolia having the lowest migrant/resident ratio at the time of migrations.

Mitochondrial analysis of a Byzantine population reveals the differential impact of multiple historical events in South Anatolia

“…This genetic pattern is in agreement with results from previous studies investigating Anatolian/Turkish populations history and obtained from different biological markers, eg proteins, Alu sequences, mtDNA, Y chromosome and morphological data. 2,20,21,26,34,41,42 More particularly, a genetic affinity of Sagalassos with Anatolian and Balkan populations has been revealed by our study (Figure 2, Figure 3, Supplementary Tables 8 and 10), suggesting a relatively similar background of the maternal gene pool in these populations. The affinity with current Anatolian populations, suggests that the same historic and demographic events that shaped the mtDNA pool of Sagalassos, might have left a genetic signature in the modern Turkish populations.…”

“…Molecular genetic analyses of modern human populations provided important clues to reconstruct the past migratory trajectories in the eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia. 2,[20][21][22][23][24] Nevertheless, these results are limited by the fact that various demographic events could have obscured over time the evolutionary history inferred from modern populations. In this context, genetic analysis of ancient populations appears to be a promising way to investigate the origin of human populations and to validate hypotheses based on modern genetic data and other fields of study (eg historical and archaeological data).…”

Polymorphic Alu insertions in human populations of Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…A limiting factor for comparison of Bosnians with other European populations was the fact that the most populations had available information about various numbers of Alu loci. This number varied from six , seven (Rajeevan et al 2003), eight (Nasidze et al 2001;García-Obregó n et al 2006Berkman et al 2008), nine (Varzari et al 2007) to 10 loci (Varzari et al 2007). …”

A microsatellite study to disentangle the ambiguity of linguistic, geographic, ethnic and genetic influences on tribes of India to get a better clarity of the antiquity and peopling of South Asia

“…Similarly, Hunley and Long (2005) found inconsistency between genetic structure (based on mitochondrial DNA diversity) and linguistic classification and also provided evidence of gene flow across linguistic boundaries among the native North American populations. Recently, the association between the Central Asian contribution and the language replacement episode was examined based on Alu insertion polymorphisms in case of Balkans of Anatolia (Berkman et al, 2008). In India, Rosenberg et al (2006) had investigated the association between language, geography, and microsatellite diversity in some caste groups.…”