Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations
share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences v.97, i.12, 6769-6774, 6jun00
 http://www.pnas.org

M. F. Hammer¹*, ⁸, A. J. Redd*, ⁸, E. T. Wood*,, M. R. Bonner*, H. Jarjanazi*, T. Karafet*, S. Santachiara-Benerecetti², A. Oppenheim³, M. A. Jobling⁴, T. Jenkins⁵, H. Ostrer⁶, and B. Bonné-Tamir⁷

¹ Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Evolution, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; ² Department of Genetics, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy³ Hadassah Medical School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91120, Israel; ⁴Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, England; ⁵SAMIR, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa; ⁶Department of Pediatrics, New York University Medical Center, New York, NY 10016; and ⁷ Department of Human Genetics, Sackler School of Medicine, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel

Communicated by Arno G. Motulsky, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, March 15, 2000 (received for review November 17, 1999)

Haplotypes constructed from Y-chromosome markers were used to trace the paternal origins of the Jewish Diaspora. A set of 18 biallelic polymorphisms was genotyped in 1,371 males from 29 populations, including 7 Jewish (Ashkenazi, Roman, North African, Kurdish, Near Eastern, Yemenite, and Ethiopian) and 16 non-Jewish groups from similar geographic locations. The Jewish populations were characterized by a diverse set of 13 haplotypes that were also present in non-Jewish populations from Africa, Asia, and Europe. A series of analyses was performed to address whether modern Jewish Y-chromosome diversity derives mainly from a common Middle Eastern source population or from admixture with neighboring non-Jewish populations during and after the Diaspora. Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities. A multidimensional scaling plot placed six of the seven Jewish populations in a relatively tight cluster that was interspersed with Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations, including Palestinians and Syrians. Pairwise differentiation tests further indicated that these Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations were not statistically different. The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.

⁸ M.F.H., A.J.R., and E.T.W. contributed equally to this work.

*To whom reprint requests should be addressed at: Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Evolution, Biosciences West Room 239, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. E-mail: mhammer@u.arizona.edu

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