Similarities and distinctions in Y chromosome gene pool of Western Slavs

Abstract

Analysis of Y chromosome Y-STRs has proven to be a useful tool in the field of population genetics, especially in the case of closely related populations. We collected DNA samples from 169 males of Czech origin, 80 males of Slovakian origin, and 142 males dwelling Northern Poland. We performed Y-STR analysis of 12 loci in the samples collected (PowerPlex Y system from Promega) and compared the Y chromosome haplotype frequencies between the populations investigated. Also, we used Y-STR data available from the literature for comparison purposes. We observed significant differences between Y chromosome pools of Czechs and Slovaks compared to other Slavic and European populations. At the same time we were able to point to a specific group of Y-STR haplotypes belonging to an R1a haplogroup that seems to be shared by Slavic populations dwelling in Central Europe. The observed Y chromosome diversity may be explained by taking into consideration archeological and historical data regarding early Slav migrations.

Contemporary paternal genetic landscape of Polish and German populations: from early medieval Slavic expansion to post-World War II resettlements

“…16 The same authors studied a modern population of Kaszuby, the most linguistically distinct ethnic group among modern Poles, and no genetic differentiation within the Polish population was found. 18 Our results are based on pre-WWII regional populations from four out of five main Polish linguistic/dialectal groups (Kashubian, Masovian, Greater Polish and Lesser Polish), and demonstrate for the first time that the Polish paternal lineages were unevenly distributed within the country before the forced resettlements of millions of people during and shortly after the WWII. Small but statistically significant differentiation between the Paternal genetic landscape of Poland and Germany K Ręba"a et al pre-WWII and modern populations is particularly remarkable taking into account the fact that modern Polish regional samples comprise varying ratios of pre-WWII inhabitants and post-WWII settlers.…”

“…Calculations of genetic distances, estimations of corresponding P-values based on 10 000 permutations and analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) were performed with the use of Arlequin 3.1 software. 15 In order to thoroughly explore the Y chromosome distribution in the Polish population before and after the WWII, our data were compared with 7-STR haplotypes published for a pre-WWII southern Polish population from the Lesser Polish-speaking regions of Podhale and Sądecczyzna (n ¼ 140) 16 and for a number of modern Polish populations, [16][17][18] including Kaszuby (n ¼ 142) and Podhale and Sądecczyzna (n ¼ 226). Multidimensional scaling (MDS) based on linearised distances 19 was carried out with the use of STATISTICA 9.1 software (StatSoft, Tulsa, OK, USA).…”

“…However, it should be noted that WWII-mediated resettlements involved both urban and rural populations. The study by Woźniak et al 18 on the modern population of Kaszuby from villages and small towns did not detect its distinctiveness from other modern Polish regional samples, which may be owing to the fact that in 1950, the post-WWII settlers constituted as many as 36.7% of inhabitants of an area roughly corresponding to the regions of Kaszuby and Kociewie 42 (in case of populations studied by Ploski et al, 2 in 1950, the share of post-WWII settlers ranged from 6.8% in the Cracow region up to 93.8% in the Wroclaw region 42 ) and discards rural origin of our pre-WWII Polish regional populations as the main reason for the detected substructure.…”

Croatian genetic heritage: Y-chromosome story

“…Population genetics could sometimes result in very interesting predictions on different groups within populations (32,33). Molecular genetic analysis of the genetic pool of modern Croatian male population confirmed extraordinary heterogeneity and complexity of this population and confirmed that there was a high degree of mixing of the newly arrived settlers with the indigenous populations that had already been present in the region.…”

Gene pool similarities and differences between Ukrainians and Russians of Slobozhanshchina based on Y-chromosome data

“…Data on the frequency ranges of Y-chromosome haplogroups in the Russian populations of Belgorod oblast were published in the work by Malyarchuk et al [5]; data with a higher phylogenetic resolution and for another sample of the Russians in Belgorod oblast are pre sented by Balanovsky et al [6]. Wozniak et al [7] pub lished data on the Y-chromosome STR-variation in the Russians of Belgorod oblast. The research by Lependina et al [8] and Tsapkova [9] on the Y-chromosome polymorphism characterize both the Russian and the Ukrainian population of Belgorod oblast; moreover, the frequency ranges of several major hap logroups are presented for the Russians and Ukraini ans, and the phylogenetic ratio of STR-haplotypes inside the major haplogroups is discussed.…”