December 05, 2005

Y-chromosome diversity in East Asia and Oceania

This chapter is a comprehensive review of Y-chromosomal diversity in East Asia and Oceania. It should come in useful to those (like me) who don't have a deep knowledge of the diverse populations of that part of the world.

Peter A. Underhill, A Synopsis of Extant Y chromosome Diversity in East Asia and Oceania (pdf).

An interesting excerpt:
Conversely, the LLY22g and TAT frequency and distribution data from Karafet et al. (2001) and unpublished data regarding M214* indicate that these chromosomes are informative in East Asian and Siberian populations. The low microsatellite diversity reported for TAT defined chromosomes indicates the occurrence of a bottleneck and subsequent demographic and range expansion (Zerjal et al. 1997). The presence of M214* lineages in East Asia suggest that they may have originated here and then dispersed northward on trajectories reaching the Baltic region. An East Asian origin of M214 is reinforced by the fact that it is a sister clade of the M175 clade that comprises the majority of East Asian lineages.
The link between haplogroup N and M175 is further reinforced by the discovery that M214 is also found in O-M175 chromosomes.

PS: You might want to read Inferring Human History: Clues from Y-chromosome haplotypes first to get an overview of human Y chromosome phylogeny.

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