Identifying a fine genetic structure across Ashkenazic Jews
(2021) BINP50 20211Degree Projects in Bioinformatics
- Abstract
- Ashkenazic Jews (AJs) are a population with a complex migration history. AJs have resided in Central and Eastern Europe at least since the 10th century. The geographical origins and migration history of AJs is controversial. Two hypotheses were proposed to address these questions: the "Rhineland hypothesis" that proposes a Levantine origin for AJs, assumes that Eastern European AJs descend from Palestinian Jews who migrated to Western Europe after the siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), maintained a relative isolation and experienced an exponential population growth between the 15th to the early 20th century in Eastern Europe. The "Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis" considers AJs to be predominantly Greco-Roman, Anatolian, Iranian, Southern Caucasus,... (More)
- Ashkenazic Jews (AJs) are a population with a complex migration history. AJs have resided in Central and Eastern Europe at least since the 10th century. The geographical origins and migration history of AJs is controversial. Two hypotheses were proposed to address these questions: the "Rhineland hypothesis" that proposes a Levantine origin for AJs, assumes that Eastern European AJs descend from Palestinian Jews who migrated to Western Europe after the siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), maintained a relative isolation and experienced an exponential population growth between the 15th to the early 20th century in Eastern Europe. The "Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis" considers AJs to be predominantly Greco-Roman, Anatolian, Iranian, Southern Caucasus, and Slavic non-Jews inhabiting Northeastern Turkey judaized by Iranian Jews during the first millennium, who later migrated to Eastern Europe. To resolve the geographical origins of AJs, we applied an identity by descent (IBD) and geographic population structure (GPS) analyses to infer the breeding patterns and trace the biogeographical origins of AJs from 12 European countries, respectively. We found genetic proximity between AJs and Northeastern Turks, followed by other Turks, Caucasus and Southern European non-Jews by IBD. We located most AJs to Central-Eastern Turkey by GPS. We also detected higher rates of inbreeding and less European gene flow in Western AJs compared to Eastern AJs. Our results support the “Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis”. (Less)
- Popular Abstract
- Ashkenazic Jews came from Turkey?
Ashkenazic Jews, the largest and least understood Jewish community , where did they originate?
Ashkenazic Jews (AJs) are the world’s largest Jewish community. Until the mid 20th century, most AJs lived in Central and Eastern Europe, from where they, relocate to Israel and the US. The existence of rare diseases among AJs, made them valuable population for medical studies and improved our understanding of hereditary and genetics.
The ancestry of AJs have attracted constant debate among historians and geneticists. Proponents of the leading “Rhineland hypothesis” suggest that AJs are direct descendants of the ancient Judeans, who were exiled to southern Europe, migrated to Germany, and experienced a... (More) - Ashkenazic Jews came from Turkey?
Ashkenazic Jews, the largest and least understood Jewish community , where did they originate?
Ashkenazic Jews (AJs) are the world’s largest Jewish community. Until the mid 20th century, most AJs lived in Central and Eastern Europe, from where they, relocate to Israel and the US. The existence of rare diseases among AJs, made them valuable population for medical studies and improved our understanding of hereditary and genetics.
The ancestry of AJs have attracted constant debate among historians and geneticists. Proponents of the leading “Rhineland hypothesis” suggest that AJs are direct descendants of the ancient Judeans, who were exiled to southern Europe, migrated to Germany, and experienced a major population growth in Eastern Europe during recent centuries. By contrast, proponents of the “Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis” suggest that the AJ genome is a tapestry of Turkish, Caucasus, Greco-Roman, and Slavic non-Jews based on linguistic and genetic analyses. These non-Jews were converted by Iranian Jews in northeastern Turkey in the early centuries AD and migrated to Eastern Europe around the 10th century.
Identifying a fine genetic structure across Ashkenazic Jews
In my master’s degree project, I combined two powerful methods for genotype data analysis, i.e., identity by descent (IBD) and geographic population structure (GPS), to study the origin of AJs across twelve AJ communities.
The results of both IBD and GPS analyses support the “Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis” and reject the Rhineland hypothesis. IBD analyses suggest that AJs are highly inbred in comparison to non-Jews across Europe. Moreover, my results demonstrate a higher Eastern European mixture and less inbreeding in eastern AJs as opposed to western AJs. In addition, AJs from the Netherlands have a higher central European mixture compared to other western AJs.
Master’s Degree Project in Bioinformatics 30 credits 2021
Department of Biology, Lund University
Advisor: Eran Elhaik
Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9066106
- author
- Zhao, Jiawei
- supervisor
-
- Eran Elhaik LU
- organization
- course
- BINP50 20211
- year
- 2021
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9066106
- date added to LUP
- 2021-09-24 15:48:11
- date last changed
- 2021-09-24 15:48:11
@misc{9066106,
abstract = {{Ashkenazic Jews (AJs) are a population with a complex migration history. AJs have resided in Central and Eastern Europe at least since the 10th century. The geographical origins and migration history of AJs is controversial. Two hypotheses were proposed to address these questions: the "Rhineland hypothesis" that proposes a Levantine origin for AJs, assumes that Eastern European AJs descend from Palestinian Jews who migrated to Western Europe after the siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), maintained a relative isolation and experienced an exponential population growth between the 15th to the early 20th century in Eastern Europe. The "Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis" considers AJs to be predominantly Greco-Roman, Anatolian, Iranian, Southern Caucasus, and Slavic non-Jews inhabiting Northeastern Turkey judaized by Iranian Jews during the first millennium, who later migrated to Eastern Europe. To resolve the geographical origins of AJs, we applied an identity by descent (IBD) and geographic population structure (GPS) analyses to infer the breeding patterns and trace the biogeographical origins of AJs from 12 European countries, respectively. We found genetic proximity between AJs and Northeastern Turks, followed by other Turks, Caucasus and Southern European non-Jews by IBD. We located most AJs to Central-Eastern Turkey by GPS. We also detected higher rates of inbreeding and less European gene flow in Western AJs compared to Eastern AJs. Our results support the “Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis”.}},
author = {{Zhao, Jiawei}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Identifying a fine genetic structure across Ashkenazic Jews}},
year = {{2021}},
}