A genome-wide analysis of populations from European Russia reveals a new pole of genetic diversity in northern Europe

PLoS One. 2013;8(3):e58552. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058552. Epub 2013 Mar 7.

Abstract

Several studies examined the fine-scale structure of human genetic variation in Europe. However, the European sets analyzed represent mainly northern, western, central, and southern Europe. Here, we report an analysis of approximately 166,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms in populations from eastern (northeastern) Europe: four Russian populations from European Russia, and three populations from the northernmost Finno-Ugric ethnicities (Veps and two contrast groups of Komi people). These were compared with several reference European samples, including Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Germans, and Italians. The results obtained demonstrated genetic heterogeneity of populations living in the region studied. Russians from the central part of European Russia (Tver, Murom, and Kursk) exhibited similarities with populations from central-eastern Europe, and were distant from Russian sample from the northern Russia (Mezen district, Archangelsk region). Komi samples, especially Izhemski Komi, were significantly different from all other populations studied. These can be considered as a second pole of genetic diversity in northern Europe (in addition to the pole, occupied by Finns), as they had a distinct ancestry component. Russians from Mezen and the Finnic-speaking Veps were positioned between the two poles, but differed from each other in the proportions of Komi and Finnic ancestries. In general, our data provides a more complete genetic map of Europe accounting for the diversity in its most eastern (northeastern) populations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cluster Analysis
  • Ethnicity / genetics*
  • Europe
  • Genetic Variation*
  • Genetics, Population
  • Genome-Wide Association Study*
  • Genotype
  • Geography
  • Humans
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • Principal Component Analysis
  • Russia
  • White People / genetics*

Grants and funding

This study was supported by grants from the Programs ‘Molecular and Cell Biology’ and ‘Fundamental Science for Medicine’ of the Russian Academy of Sciences; the Federal Support of Leading Scientific Schools (grant 4294.2012.4); Russian Basic Research Foundation and The Ministry of education and science of Russian Federation (project 8805). EGCUT received financing by (ENGAGE, OPENGENE), targeted financing from Estonian Government SF0180142s08, Estonian Research Roadmap through Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (3.2.0304.11-0312), Center of Excellence in Genomics (EXCEGEN) and Development Fund of University of Tartu (SP1GVARENG). MM was supported by CZ.2.16/3.1.00/24022, Institutional support for UH Motol (0064203) and by NT/13770-4 from the Czech Ministry of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.