Abstract
Cultural expansions, including of religions, frequently leave genetic traces of differentiation and in-migration. These expansions may be driven by complex doctrinal differentiation, together with major population migrations and gene flow. The aim of this study was to explore the genetic signature of the establishment of religious communities in a region where some of the most influential religions originated, using the Y chromosome as an informative male-lineage marker. A total of 3139 samples were analyzed, including 647 Lebanese and Iranian samples newly genotyped for 28 binary markers and 19 short tandem repeats on the non-recombinant segment of the Y chromosome. Genetic organization was identified by geography and religion across Lebanon in the context of surrounding populations important in the expansions of the major sects of Lebanon, including Italy, Turkey, the Balkans, Syria, and Iran by employing principal component analysis, multidimensional scaling, and AMOVA. Timing of population differentiations was estimated using BATWING, in comparison with dates of historical religious events to determine if these differentiations could be caused by religious conversion, or rather, whether religious conversion was facilitated within already differentiated populations. Our analysis shows that the great religions in Lebanon were adopted within already distinguishable communities. Once religious affiliations were established, subsequent genetic signatures of the older differentiations were reinforced. Post-establishment differentiations are most plausibly explained by migrations of peoples seeking refuge to avoid the turmoil of major historical events.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the sample donors for taking part in this study. YX and CTS are supported by The Wellcome Trust. The Genographic Project is supported by funding from the National Geographic Society, IBM, and the Waitt Family Foundation.
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The Genographic Consortium
Syama Adhikarla1, Christina J Adler2, Elena Balanovska3, Oleg Balanovsky3, Jaume Bertranpetit4, Andrew C Clarke5, David Comas4, Alan Cooper2, Clio SI Der Sarkissian2, Matthew C Dulik6, Christoff J Erasmus7, Jill B Gaieski6, ArunKumar GaneshPrasad1, Wolfgang Haak2, Angela Hobbs7, Asif Javed8, Li Jin9, Matthew E Kaplan10, Shilin Li9, Begoña Martínez-Cruz4, Elizabeth A Matisoo-Smith5, Marta Melé4, Nirav C Merchant10, R John Mitchell11, Amanda C Owings6, Laxmi Parida8, Ramasamy Pitchappan1, Lluis Quintana-Murci12, Colin Renfrew13, Daniela R Lacerda14, Fabrício R Santos14, Theodore G Schurr6, Himla Soodyall7, Pandikumar Swamikrishnan15, Kavitha Valampuri John1, Arun Varatharajan Santhakumari1, Pedro Paulo Vieira16, Janet S Ziegle17
Affiliations for participants: 1Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India; 2University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia; 3Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia; 4Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain; 5University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand; 6University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 7National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa; 8IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA; 9Fudan University, Shanghai, China; 10University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA; 11La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; 12Institut Pasteur, Paris, France; 13University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; 14Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil; 15IBM, Somers, NY, USA; 16Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 17Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA.
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Haber, M., Platt, D., Badro, D. et al. Influences of history, geography, and religion on genetic structure: the Maronites in Lebanon. Eur J Hum Genet 19, 334–340 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejhg.2010.177
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejhg.2010.177
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