[Y-Indology] Indian Express Article today

[Guest guest]

The abstract of the paper (reproduced below) may be found at:

 

http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/GR-1733RRv1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=1\

0&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=caste&searchid=QID_NOT_SET&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=&j\

ournalcode=genome

 

Regards,

Rohan.

 

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Published Online

on May 8, 2001

 

LETTER

Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations

 

Michael Bamshad,1,10,12 Toomas Kivisild,2 W. Scott Watkins,3 Mary E.

Dixon,3 Chris E. Ricker,3 Baskara B. Rao,4 J. Mastan Naidu,4 B.V. Ravi

Prasad,4,5 P. Govinda Reddy,6 Arani Rasanayagam,7 Surinder S. Papiha,8

Richard Villems,2 Alan J. Redd,7 Michael F. Hammer,7 Son V. Nguyen,9

Marion L. Carroll,9 Mark A. Batzer,9,11 and Lynn B. Jorde3

 

1 Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

84112, USA; 2 Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Tartu

University and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu 51010, Estonia; 3 Department

of Human Genetics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

84112, USA; 4 Department of Anthropology, Andhra University,

Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India; 5 Anthropological Survey of

India, Calcutta, India; 6 Department of Anthropology, University of

Madras, Madras, Tamil Nadu, India; 7 Laboratory of Molecular

Systematics and Evolution, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

85721, USA; 8 Department of Human Genetics, University of

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK; 9 Department of Pathology, Biometry and

Genetics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Stanley S. Scott Cancer

Center, Louisiana State University Health Science Center, New Orleans,

Louisiana 70112, USA

 

The origins and affinities of the ~1 billion people living on the

subcontinent of India have long been contested. This is owing, in

part, to the many different waves of immigrants that have influenced

the genetic structure of India. In the most recent of these waves,

Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the

Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly

admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations.

Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and

placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank. To explore the

impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we

compared mtDNA (400 bp of hypervariable region 1 and 14 restriction

site polymorphisms) and Y-chromosome (20 biallelic polymorphisms and

5 short tandem repeats) variation in ~265 males from eight castes of

different rank to ~750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians.

For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians.

However, 20%-30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian

haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to

caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being

found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited

Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to

Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste

rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly

East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West

Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank. Nevertheless, the

mitochondrial genome and the Y chromosome each represents only a

single haploid locus and is more susceptible to large stochastic

variation, bottlenecks, and selective sweeps. Thus, to increase the

power of our analysis, we assayed 40 independent, biparentally

inherited autosomal loci (1 LINE-1 and 39 Alu elements) in all of the

caste and continental populations (~600 individuals). Analysis of

these data demonstrated that the upper castes have a higher affinity

to Europeans than to Asians, and the upper castes are significantly

more similar to Europeans than are the lower castes. Collectively, all

five datasets show a trend toward upper castes being more similar to

Europeans, whereas lower castes are more similar to Asians. We

conclude that Indian castes are most likely to be of proto-Asian

origin with West Eurasian admixture resulting in rank-related and

sex-specific differences in the genetic affinities of castes to Asians

and Europeans.

_

 

Present addresses: 10Eccles Institute of Human Genetics, 15 North

2030 East, Room 2100, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

84112-5330, USA. 11Department of Biological Sciences, Biological

Computation and Visualization Center, Louisiana State University,

508 Life Sciences Building, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. 12

Corresponding author.

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11:000-000 © by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press ISSN 1088-9051/01

$5.00

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