Inferring ethnicity from the X-chromosome ALU insertions: Data from Western Mediterranean human groups

Genetic ancestry of a Moroccan population as inferred from autosomal STRs

“…This expansion could be attributed to either the Arab–Berber occupation that lasted seven centuries or to prehistoric immigrations of North Africans to Iberia ( Ibn Abd-el-Hakem, 1858 ) probably during the Capsian diffusion in North Africa and suggesting important demographic movements in the western area of this continent. For instance and in line with our results, it was found using classical genetic markers, that the Near East showed smaller genetic distances with East Africa than with West Africa (especially Arab groups) and Iberian Peninsula ( Bentayebi et al, 2011 , Botigué et al, 2013 , Henn et al, 2012 ). Moreover, Cultural and religious changes within the last two millennia appear to have facilitated and maintained admixture between culturally similar populations from the Near East and North Africa.…”

“…Previous genetic studies in Morocco have mainly focused on classical markers, Alu polymorphisms ( Aboukhalid et al, 2013 , Bentayebi et al, 2011 ), mitochondrial DNA ( Bentayebi et al, 2012a , Bentayebi et al, 2012b ), X chromosome STRs and SNPs ( Picornell et al, 2011 , Tomas et al, 2008 ) and Y-chromosome STRs and SNP ( Aboukhalid et al, 2009 , Aboukhalid et al, 2010 ) variation in Berber and Arabic speaking samples from small and limited parts of Morocco. The present work completes the previous studies investigating a wide range of samples from different part of Morocco (Arab, Berber and Sahrawi).…”

“…The present study characterizes autosomal STR genotypes from Morocco to examine population substructure and genetic relationships with other groups, including testing of the proposed genetic affinities between Morocco and populations in Southern Europe, North Africa and Middle East ( Aboukhalid et al, 2009 , Aboukhalid et al, 2010 , Aboukhalid et al, 2013 , Bentayebi et al, 2011 , Bentayebi et al, 2012a , Bentayebi et al, 2012b , Picornell et al, 2011 ). We predict that if the actual Moroccan population share a common ancestor (or have experienced more recent migration and resultant gene flow) with either populations in Southern Europe or Middle East (Arab), allele frequencies of autosomal STR loci will be similar among Morocco and these proposed related populations and genetic distances between these populations will be low.…”