In the study, lead author Noah A. Rosenberg of the University of Southern California and co-author Jonathan K. Pritchard of the University of Chicago applied a powerful statistical technique that uses many independent genes to detect the geographic patterns of ancestry in samples from any species. When applied to people, the technique proved remarkably successful. The research team accurately pinpointed the ancestral continent of virtually every individual from Africa, East Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
People from Eurasia which includes Europe, the Middle East and Central /South Asia were among the most difficult to assign ancestries, Feldman noted. "A complex history of migrations, conquests and trade over the past few thousand years is likely to be the cause for this difficulty," he said. An exception were the Basques of Spain a geographically and linguistically isolated population that was genetically distinguishable from other European groups.
The Science paper also supports recent genetic studies of human migration, confirming migratory patterns between Europe and West Asia, Europe and Central America and other continents as well. "By sampling genotypes from people from all parts of the world, geneticists have reconstructed the major features of our history: our ancient African origin, migrations out of Africa, movements and settlements throughout Eurasia and Oceania, and [the] peopling of the Americas," wrote Mary-Claire King and Arno Motulsky, both of the University of Washington, in an editorial accompanying the Science paper.
Medical implications
DNA analysis confirmed what most of study's 1,056 participants had said about their ancestry a finding that lends credence to the argument that an individual's own family history can be a useful way of determining his or her genetic predisposition to disease.
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Contact: Mark Shwartz
mshwartz@stanford.edu
650-723-9296
Stanford University
19-Dec-2002