[Article] Mapping Human Genetic Diversity in Asia.

Science 11 December 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5959, pp. 1541 - 1545

DOI: 10.1126/science.1177074

The HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium*,

Asia harbors substantial cultural and linguistic diversity, but the geographic structure of genetic variation across the continent remains enigmatic. Here we report a large-scale survey of autosomal variation from a broad geographic sample of Asian human populations. Our results show that genetic ancestry is strongly correlated with linguistic affiliations as well as geography. Most populations show relatedness within ethnic/linguistic groups, despite prevalent gene flow among populations. More than 90% of East Asian (EA) haplotypes could be found in either Southeast Asian (SEA) or Central-South Asian (CSA) populations and show clinal structure with haplotype diversity decreasing from south to north. Furthermore, 50% of EA haplotypes were found in SEA only and 5% were found in CSA only, indicating that SEA was a major geographic source of EA populations.

* All authors with their affiliations appear at the end of this paper.

 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ljin007@gmail.com (L.J.); liue@gis.a-star.edu.sg (E.T.L.); seielstadm@gis.a-star.edu.sg (M.S.); xushua@picb.ac.cn (S.X.)

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