Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 4, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3928
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Funding
- Slava Smolokowski Fund at Rambam Medical Center
- NSF [DGE-1147470]
- European Social Fund's Doctoral Studies and Internationalisation Programme DoRa
- European Union European Regional Development Fund through the Centre of Excellence in Genomics
- Estonian Biocentre and the University of Tartu
- European Commission [205419 ECOGENE]
- Estonian Science Foundation [8973]
- Estonian Basic Research [SF 0270177s08]
- Division Of Mathematical Sciences
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1201234] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Previous Y-chromosome studies have demonstrated that Ashkenazi Levites, members of a paternally inherited Jewish priestly caste, display a distinctive founder event within R1a, the most prevalent Y-chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europe. Here we report the analysis of 16 whole R1 sequences and show that a set of 19 unique nucleotide substitutions defines the Ashkenazi R1a lineage. While our survey of one of these, M582, in 2,834 R1a samples reveals its absence in 922 Eastern Europeans, we show it is present in all sampled R1a Ashkenazi Levites, as well as in 33.8% of other R1a Ashkenazi Jewish males and 5.9% of 303 R1a Near Eastern males, where it shows considerably higher diversity. Moreover, the M582 lineage also occurs at low frequencies in non-Ashkenazi Jewish populations. In contrast to the previously suggested Eastern European origin for Ashkenazi Levites, the current data are indicative of a geographic source of the Levite founder lineage in the Near East and its likely presence among pre-Diaspora Hebrews.
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