The differences among Jewish communities?Maternal and paternal contributions

Abstract

The haplotypes of Y chromosome (paternally inherited) and mtDNA (maternally inherited) were analyzed in representatives of six Jewish communities (Ashkenazic, North African, Near Eastern, Yemenite, Minor Asian/Balkanian, and Ethiopian). For both elements, the Ethiopian community has a mixture of typically African and typically Caucasian haplotypes and is significantly different from all others. The other communities, whose haplotypes are mostly Caucasian, are more closely related; significant differences that were found among some of them possibly indicate the effects of admixture with neighboring communities of non-Jews. The different contribution of the Y chromosome and mtDNA haplotypes to the significant differences among the communities can be explained by unequal involvement of males and females in the different admixtures. In all communities, except the Ethiopians, the level of diversity (h) for Y chromosome haplotypes is higher than that for mtDNA haplotypes, suggesting that in each community the people who become parents include more males than females. An opposite proportion (more females than males) is found among the Ethiopians.

Distinctive genetic signatures in the Libyan Jews

“…In addition, Yemen was ruled by governors from Ethiopia during 525-573 CE (42). Although some authors have argued that Ethiopian Jews derive mostly from Africans (15,43), or that the Ethiopian Jews are distant from all other populations that they studied (24), others have claimed that this group, as well as Ethiopian non-Jewish populations in general, may contain some African and some Middle Eastern ancestry (11,(44)(45)(46)(47). Ethiopian Jewish Y-chromosomal haplotypes are often present in Yemenite and other Jewish populations (see table 1 in ref.…”

Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes

“…More recently, restriction fragment length polymorphism studies were initiated by using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY), and other nuclear loci (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20). An advantage of nucleotide-level studies is that they circumvent some of the complications associated with selection; however, these studies have not fully resolved many of the key issues in the earlier literature.…”

Further characteristics of proto-European Y chromosomes

“…However, they were both located in Israel because of their Middle Eastern origin, as testified by autosomal and uniparental marker studies. [22][23][24][25] Proto-European Y chromosomes L Quintana-Murci et al t …”