Genomic Insights Into the Population History and Biological Adaptation of Southwestern Chinese Hmong–Mien People

Abstract

Hmong–Mien (HM) -speaking populations, widely distributed in South China, the north of Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, have experienced different settlement environments, dietary habits, and pathogenic exposure. However, their specific biological adaptation remained largely uncharacterized, which is important in the population evolutionary genetics and Trans-Omics for regional Precision Medicine. Besides, the origin and genetic diversity of HM people and their phylogenetic relationship with surrounding modern and ancient populations are also unknown. Here, we reported genome-wide SNPs in 52 representative Miao people and combined them with 144 HM people from 13 geographically representative populations to characterize the full genetic admixture and adaptive landscape of HM speakers. We found that obvious genetic substructures existed in geographically different HM populations; one localized in the HM clines, and others possessed affinity with Han Chinese. We also identified one new ancestral lineage specifically existed in HM people, which spatially distributed from Sichuan and Guizhou in the north to Thailand in the south. The sharing patterns of the newly identified homogenous ancestry component combined the estimated admixture times via the decay of linkage disequilibrium and haplotype sharing in GLOBETROTTER suggested that the modern HM-speaking populations originated from Southwest China and migrated southward in the historic period, which is consistent with the reconstructed phenomena of linguistic and archeological documents. Additionally, we identified specific adaptive signatures associated with several important human nervous system biological functions. Our pilot work emphasized the importance of anthropologically informed sampling and deeply genetic structure reconstruction via whole-genome sequencing in the next step in the deep Chinese Population Genomic Diversity Project (CPGDP), especially in the regions with rich ethnolinguistic diversity.

Genome-wide allele and haplotype-sharing patterns suggested one unique Hmong–Mein-related lineage and biological adaptation history in Southwest China

“…These findings also supported that the Yao was closer related to populations belonging to the TK language family than the Miao and She [ 30 ]. Liu et al collected genome-wide SNP data from three representative Miao groups in Sichuan Province and merged them with data from 144 Miaos from 13 regions to comprehensively characterize the biological adaptations of the Miao people during the migration [ 31 ]. The findings revealed high genetic similarity among HM populations from different regions in southwestern China and Southeast Asia, but subtle genetic differences between each other.…”

Multiple founding paternal lineages inferred from the newly-developed 639-plex Y-SNP panel suggested the complex admixture and migration history of Chinese people

“…Tibeto-Burman groups from Tibetan Plateau had the highest proportion of ancestry related to core Tibet Tibetan and Nepal Chokhopani, Mebrak, and Samdzong people [ 67 , 68 ]. The primary ancestral component of Hmong-Mien people from southwestern China was maximized in ancestry related to Miao and Yao people [ 69 ], and Austronesian-speaking people from Taiwan Island have more Ami/Atayal or ancient Hanben-related ancestry [ 41 ]. Han Chinese ancestry localized between the four ancestries mentioned above and showed a northern-to-southern genetic cline.…”

Fine-Scale Population Admixture Landscape of Tai–Kadai-Speaking Maonan in Southwest China Inferred From Genome-Wide SNP Data

“…However, their fine-scale population history and their genetic relationship with the surrounding Hmong–Mien- and Sino-Tibetan-speaking populations have not been fully characterized, which are especially focused on the sharing of genome-wide haplotype data. Genetic studies of populations from the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau regions have found enriched genetic diversity and complex mixed population genetic history ( He et al, 2019a ; He et al, 2019b ; Zhang et al, 2019 ; Liu et al, 2021a ; He et al, 2021b ; Liu et al, 2021b ; Chen et al, 2021 ). The detailed relationship between Maonan and modern and ancient neighboring populations needs to be characterized further.…”