36 research outputs found

    Eesti esiajalugu geneetika vaatevinklist: uus teave vana DNA uuringutest

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    VĂ€itekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneJuba aastakĂŒmneid on populatsioonide demograafilist ajalugu vorminud protsesse uuritud tĂ€napĂ€eval elavate inimeste geneetiliste andmete abil. Viimase pea 15 aasta jooksul on sellesse valdkonda hakanud oluliselt panustama ka vana DNA uurimine. TĂ€napĂ€evaseid genoome analĂŒĂŒsides on vĂ”imalik ennustada, millised protsessid ja millal populatsioone mĂ”jutanud on. Vana DNA genoomid on seotud kindla aja ja kohaga minevikus, mis vĂ”imaldab neid ennustusi kontrollida ning leida populatsioone, millel tĂ€napĂ€eva genoomidesse panustada ei Ă”nnestunud. Selle doktoritöö peamiseks teemaks on Euroopa ja tĂ€psemalt Eesti demograafiline ajalugu. NĂŒĂŒdisinimesed jĂ”udsid Euroopasse umbes 45 000 aastat tagasi (a.t.). U. 8000 a.t. jĂ”udis Euroopasse pĂ”lluharimine koos LĂ€his-Ida pĂ€ritolu inimestega. Eesti erineb mĂ”neti ĂŒlejÀÀnud Euroopast – esimesed inimasustuse jĂ€ljed pĂ€rinevad jÀÀajajĂ€rgsest perioodist u. 11 000 a.t., pĂ”lluharimine sai alguse alles u. 5000 a.t. nöörkeraamika kultuuri saabumisega ning tĂ€napĂ€eva eestlased, soomlased ja mĂ”ned vĂ€iksemad Ida-Euroopa ja LÀÀne-Siberi rahvad rÀÀgivad uurali keeli, mis pĂ€rinevad ilmselt Volga-Kama piirkonnast. Töö raames uuriti arheoloogia, lingvistika ja geneetika andmeid kĂ”rvutades Eesti elanikke nooremast kiviajast tĂ€napĂ€evani laiemas Euraasia kontekstis. Selgus, et tĂ€napĂ€eva eestlaste genoom on kujunenud mitmete sisserĂ€nnete tulemusena: kĂŒttimise-korilusega seotud kammkeraamika kultuuri Eestisse jĂ”udmisega nooremal kiviajal kaasnes idapoolse pĂ€ritoluga inimeste lisandumine lÀÀnepoolse geneetilise taustaga populatsiooni; u. tuhat aastat hiljem tĂ”id nöörkeraamika kultuuri esindajad meie alale pĂ”lluharimisega koos Ida-Euroopa stepi aukhaudade kultuuri inimeste geneetilise komponendi; pronksiaegsete kivikirstkalmetesse maetute genoomides suurenes taas kĂŒttide-korilaste geneetiline panus; rauaajal ilmus tarandkalmetesse maetute genoomidesse Siberi geneetiline komponent, mis seob ka tĂ€napĂ€eva eestlasi teiste uurali keelte kĂ”nelejatega Euroopas ja Siberis.The processes that have shaped the demographic histories of populations through time have been studied for decades using modern genetic data. In the last almost 15 years, ancient DNA research has started to contribute significantly to this field. Analysing modern genomes enables to derive models to explain population change in the past. Ancient genomes are connected to a certain time and place, enabling to specify these models and to uncover genetic lineages that have not managed to contribute to the genomes of modern populations. The main topic of this thesis is the demographic history of Europe and more specifically Estonia. Modern humans reached Europe by around 45,000 years ago (ya). Around 8,000 ya, farming was brought to Europe by people with Near-Eastern ancestry. Estonia is somewhat different from most of Europe – the first evidence of human settlement is from after the ice age around 11,000 ya, farming arrived only with the Late Neolithic Corded Ware culture people, and Estonians, Finns and some smaller populations in Eastern Europe and Western Siberia speak Uralic languages, originating probably in the Volga-Kama region. This thesis combines data from archaeology, linguistics and genetics to study the occupants of Estonia from the Neolithic until today in a wider Eurasian context. The genome of modern Estonians is found to be influenced by several past migration events. Firstly, the Neolithic hunter-gatherers of Comb Ceramic culture were likely to bring eastern influences to the initial population with a western genetic background. Around a thousand years later, farming-based economies spread in Estonia together with Corded Ware culture. Its carriers were people with ancestry from Yamnaya people from the Eastern European steppe. Hunter-gatherer ancestry increased again in the Bronze Age while Estonian Iron Age genomes reveal an influx of a new genetic component from Siberia, which also connects modern Estonians to other Uralic speakers in Europe and Siberia.  https://www.ester.ee/record=b524178

    Genetic ancestry changes in Stone to Bronze Age transition in the East European plain

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    The transition from Stone to Bronze Age in Central and Western Europe was a period of major population movements originating from the Ponto-Caspian Steppe. Here, we report new genome-wide sequence data from 30 individuals north of this area, from the understudied western part of present-day Russia, including 3 Stone Age hunter-gatherers (10, 800 to 4250 cal BCE) and 26 Bronze Age farmers from the Corded Ware complex Fatyanovo Culture (2900 to 2050 cal BCE). We show that Eastern hunter-gatherer ancestry was present in northwestern Russia already from around 10, 000 BCE. Furthermore, we see a change in ancestry with the arrival of farming - Fatyanovo Culture individuals were genetically similar to other Corded Ware cultures, carrying a mixture of Steppe and European early farmer ancestry. Thus, they likely originate from a fast migration toward the northeast from somewhere near modern-day Ukraine - the closest area where these ancestries coexisted from around 3000 BCE

    Early divergent strains of Yersinia pestis in Eurasia 5,000 years ago.

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    The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the etiological agent of plague and has caused human pandemics with millions of deaths in historic times. How and when it originated remains contentious. Here, we report the oldest direct evidence of Yersinia pestis identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe dating from 2,800 to 5,000 years ago. By sequencing the genomes, we find that these ancient plague strains are basal to all known Yersinia pestis. We find the origins of the Yersinia pestis lineage to be at least two times older than previous estimates. We also identify a temporal sequence of genetic changes that lead to increased virulence and the emergence of the bubonic plague. Our results show that plague infection was endemic in the human populations of Eurasia at least 3,000 years before any historical recordings of pandemics

    Mycobacterium leprae diversity and population dynamics in medieval Europe from novel ancient genomes.

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    Funder: Max-Planck SocietyFunder: St John’s College, CambridgeFunder: Fondation Raoul FollereauFunder: University of Zurich’s University Research Priority Program “Evolution in Action: From Genomes to Ecosystems”Funder: the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (S-HEP) at the University of TĂŒbingenBackgroundHansen's disease (leprosy), widespread in medieval Europe, is today mainly prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions with around 200,000 new cases reported annually. Despite its long history and appearance in historical records, its origins and past dissemination patterns are still widely unknown. Applying ancient DNA approaches to its major causative agent, Mycobacterium leprae, can significantly improve our understanding of the disease's complex history. Previous studies have identified a high genetic continuity of the pathogen over the last 1500 years and the existence of at least four M. leprae lineages in some parts of Europe since the Early Medieval period.ResultsHere, we reconstructed 19 ancient M. leprae genomes to further investigate M. leprae's genetic variation in Europe, with a dedicated focus on bacterial genomes from previously unstudied regions (Belarus, Iberia, Russia, Scotland), from multiple sites in a single region (Cambridgeshire, England), and from two Iberian leprosaria. Overall, our data confirm the existence of similar phylogeographic patterns across Europe, including high diversity in leprosaria. Further, we identified a new genotype in Belarus. By doubling the number of complete ancient M. leprae genomes, our results improve our knowledge of the past phylogeography of M. leprae and reveal a particularly high M. leprae diversity in European medieval leprosaria.ConclusionsOur findings allow us to detect similar patterns of strain diversity across Europe with branch 3 as the most common branch and the leprosaria as centers for high diversity. The higher resolution of our phylogeny tree also refined our understanding of the interspecies transfer between red squirrels and humans pointing to a late antique/early medieval transmission. Furthermore, with our new estimates on the past population diversity of M. leprae, we gained first insights into the disease's global history in relation to major historic events such as the Roman expansion or the beginning of the regular transatlantic long distance trade. In summary, our findings highlight how studying ancient M. leprae genomes worldwide improves our understanding of leprosy's global history and can contribute to current models of M. leprae's worldwide dissemination, including interspecies transmissions

    Mycobacterium leprae diversity and population dynamics in medieval Europe from novel ancient genomes

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    Background: Hansen’s disease (leprosy), widespread in medieval Europe, is today mainly prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions with around 200,000 new cases reported annually. Despite its long history and appearance in historical records, its origins and past dissemination patterns are still widely unknown. Applying ancient DNA approaches to its major causative agent, Mycobacterium leprae, can significantly improve our understanding of the disease’s complex history. Previous studies have identified a high genetic continuity of the pathogen over the last 1500 years and the existence of at least four M. leprae lineages in some parts of Europe since the Early Medieval period. Results: Here, we reconstructed 19 ancient M. leprae genomes to further investigate M. leprae’s genetic variation in Europe, with a dedicated focus on bacterial genomes from previously unstudied regions (Belarus, Iberia, Russia, Scotland), from multiple sites in a single region (Cambridgeshire, England), and from two Iberian leprosaria. Overall, our data confirm the existence of similar phylogeographic patterns across Europe, including high diversity in leprosaria. Further, we identified a new genotype in Belarus. By doubling the number of complete ancient M. leprae genomes, our results improve our knowledge of the past phylogeography of M. leprae and reveal a particularly high M. leprae diversity in European medieval leprosaria. Conclusions: Our findings allow us to detect similar patterns of strain diversity across Europe with branch 3 as the most common branch and the leprosaria as centers for high diversity. The higher resolution of our phylogeny tree also refined our understanding of the interspecies transfer between red squirrels and humans pointing to a late antique/early medieval transmission. Furthermore, with our new estimates on the past population diversity of M. leprae, we gained first insights into the disease’s global history in relation to major historic events such as the Roman expansion or the beginning of the regular transatlantic long distance trade. In summary, our findings highlight how studying ancient M. leprae genomes worldwide improves our understanding of leprosy’s global history and can contribute to current models of M. leprae’s worldwide dissemination, including interspecies transmissions

    Genes reveal traces of common recent demographic history for most of the Uralic-speaking populations

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    Background: The genetic origins of Uralic speakers from across a vast territory in the temperate zone of North Eurasia have remained elusive. Previous studies have shown contrasting proportions of Eastern and Western Eurasian ancestry in their mitochondrial and Y chromosomal gene pools. While the maternal lineages reflect by and large the geographic background of a given Uralic-speaking population, the frequency of Y chromosomes of Eastern Eurasian origin is distinctively high among European Uralic speakers. The autosomal variation of Uralic speakers, however, has not yet been studied comprehensively.Results: Here, we present a genome-wide analysis of 15 Uralic-speaking populations which cover all main groups of the linguistic family. We show that contemporary Uralic speakers are genetically very similar to their local geographical neighbours. However, when studying relationships among geographically distant populations, we find that most of the Uralic speakers and some of their neighbours share a genetic component of possibly Siberian origin. Additionally, we show that most Uralic speakers share significantly more genomic segments identity-by-descent with each other than with geographically equidistant speakers of other languages. We find that correlated genome-wide genetic and lexical distances among Uralic speakers suggest co-dispersion of genes and languages. Yet, we do not find long-range genetic ties between Estonians and Hungarians with their linguistic sisters that would distinguish them from their non-Uralic-speaking neighbours.Conclusions: We show that most Uralic speakers share a distinct ancestry component of likely Siberian origin, which suggests that the spread of Uralic languages involved at least some demic component

    Genes reveal traces of common recent demographic history for most of the Uralic-speaking populations.

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    BACKGROUND: The genetic origins of Uralic speakers from across a vast territory in the temperate zone of North Eurasia have remained elusive. Previous studies have shown contrasting proportions of Eastern and Western Eurasian ancestry in their mitochondrial and Y chromosomal gene pools. While the maternal lineages reflect by and large the geographic background of a given Uralic-speaking population, the frequency of Y chromosomes of Eastern Eurasian origin is distinctively high among European Uralic speakers. The autosomal variation of Uralic speakers, however, has not yet been studied comprehensively. RESULTS: Here, we present a genome-wide analysis of 15 Uralic-speaking populations which cover all main groups of the linguistic family. We show that contemporary Uralic speakers are genetically very similar to their local geographical neighbours. However, when studying relationships among geographically distant populations, we find that most of the Uralic speakers and some of their neighbours share a genetic component of possibly Siberian origin. Additionally, we show that most Uralic speakers share significantly more genomic segments identity-by-descent with each other than with geographically equidistant speakers of other languages. We find that correlated genome-wide genetic and lexical distances among Uralic speakers suggest co-dispersion of genes and languages. Yet, we do not find long-range genetic ties between Estonians and Hungarians with their linguistic sisters that would distinguish them from their non-Uralic-speaking neighbours. CONCLUSIONS: We show that most Uralic speakers share a distinct ancestry component of likely Siberian origin, which suggests that the spread of Uralic languages involved at least some demic component

    Genomic analyses inform on migration events during the peopling of Eurasia.

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    High-coverage whole-genome sequence studies have so far focused on a limited number of geographically restricted populations, or been targeted at specific diseases, such as cancer. Nevertheless, the availability of high-resolution genomic data has led to the development of new methodologies for inferring population history and refuelled the debate on the mutation rate in humans. Here we present the Estonian Biocentre Human Genome Diversity Panel (EGDP), a dataset of 483 high-coverage human genomes from 148 populations worldwide, including 379 new genomes from 125 populations, which we group into diversity and selection sets. We analyse this dataset to refine estimates of continent-wide patterns of heterozygosity, long- and short-distance gene flow, archaic admixture, and changes in effective population size through time as well as for signals of positive or balancing selection. We find a genetic signature in present-day Papuans that suggests that at least 2% of their genome originates from an early and largely extinct expansion of anatomically modern humans (AMHs) out of Africa. Together with evidence from the western Asian fossil record, and admixture between AMHs and Neanderthals predating the main Eurasian expansion, our results contribute to the mounting evidence for the presence of AMHs out of Africa earlier than 75,000 years ago.Support was provided by: Estonian Research Infrastructure Roadmap grant no 3.2.0304.11-0312; Australian Research Council Discovery grants (DP110102635 and DP140101405) (D.M.L., M.W. and E.W.); Danish National Research Foundation; the Lundbeck Foundation and KU2016 (E.W.); ERC Starting Investigator grant (FP7 - 261213) (T.K.); Estonian Research Council grant PUT766 (G.C. and M.K.); EU European Regional Development Fund through the Centre of Excellence in Genomics to Estonian Biocentre (R.V.; M.Me. and A.Me.), and Centre of Excellence for Genomics and Translational Medicine Project No. 2014-2020.4.01.15-0012 to EGC of UT (A.Me.) and EBC (M.Me.); Estonian Institutional Research grant IUT24-1 (L.S., M.J., A.K., B.Y., K.T., C.B.M., Le.S., H.Sa., S.L., D.M.B., E.M., R.V., G.H., M.K., G.C., T.K. and M.Me.) and IUT20-60 (A.Me.); French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and French ANR grant number ANR-14-CE31-0013-01 (F.-X.R.); Gates Cambridge Trust Funding (E.J.); ICG SB RAS (No. VI.58.1.1) (D.V.L.); Leverhulme Programme grant no. RP2011-R-045 (A.B.M., P.G. and M.G.T.); Ministry of Education and Science of Russia; Project 6.656.2014/K (S.A.F.); NEFREX grant funded by the European Union (People Marie Curie Actions; International Research Staff Exchange Scheme; call FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IRSES-number 318979) (M.Me., G.H. and M.K.); NIH grants 5DP1ES022577 05, 1R01DK104339-01, and 1R01GM113657-01 (S.Tis.); Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant N 14-06-00180a) (M.G.); Russian Foundation for Basic Research; grant 16-04-00890 (O.B. and E.B); Russian Science Foundation grant 14-14-00827 (O.B.); The Russian Foundation for Basic Research (14-04-00725-a), The Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (13-11-02014) and the Program of the Basic Research of the RAS Presidium “Biological diversity” (E.K.K.); Wellcome Trust and Royal Society grant WT104125AIA & the Bristol Advanced Computing Research Centre (http://www.bris.ac.uk/acrc/) (D.J.L.); Wellcome Trust grant 098051 (Q.A.; C.T.-S. and Y.X.); Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship grant 100719/Z/12/Z (M.G.T.); Young Explorers Grant from the National Geographic Society (8900-11) (C.A.E.); ERC Consolidator Grant 647787 ‘LocalAdaptatio’ (A.Ma.); Program of the RAS Presidium “Basic research for the development of the Russian Arctic” (B.M.); Russian Foundation for Basic Research grant 16-06-00303 (E.B.); a Rutherford Fellowship (RDF-10-MAU-001) from the Royal Society of New Zealand (M.P.C.)
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