Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 May;125(3):367-75.
doi: 10.1007/s00414-010-0485-x. Epub 2010 Jul 21.

Y-STR diversity in the Himalayas

Tenzin Gayden  1 , Shilpa Chennakrishnaiah, Joel La Salvia, Sacha Jimenez, Maria Regueiro, Trisha Maloney, Patrice J Persad, Areej Bukhari, Annabel Perez, Oliver Stojkovic, Rene J Herrera
Affiliations

Y-STR diversity in the Himalayas

Tenzin Gayden et al. Int J Legal Med. 2011 May.

Abstract

Linguistic and ethnic diversity throughout the Himalayas suggests that this mountain range played an important role in shaping the genetic landscapes of the region. Previous Y-chromosome work revealed that the Himalayas acted as a biased bidirectional barrier to gene flow across the cordillera. In the present study, 17 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (Y-STR) loci included in the AmpFlSTR® Yfiler kit were analyzed in 344 unrelated males from three Nepalese populations (Tamang, Newar, and Kathmandu) and a general collection from Tibet. The latter displays the highest haplotype diversity (0.9990) followed by Kathmandu (0.9977), Newar (0.9570), and Tamang (0.9545). The overall haplotype diversity for the Himalayan populations at 17 Y-STR loci was 0.9973, and the corresponding values for the extended (11 loci) and minimal (nine loci) haplotypes were 0.9955 and 0.9942, respectively. No Y-STR profiles are shared across the four Himalayan collections at the 17-, 11-, and nine-locus resolutions considered, indicating a lack of recent gene flow among them. Phylogenetic analyses support our previous findings that Kathmandu, and to some extent Newar, received significant genetic influence from India while Tamang and Tibet exhibit limited or no gene flow from the subcontinent. A median-joining network of haplogroup O3a3c-M134 based on 15 Y-STR loci from our four Himalayan populations suggests either a male founder effect in Tamang, possibly from Tibet, or a recent bottleneck following their arrival south of the Himalayas from Tibet leading to their highly reduced Y single-nucleotide polymorphism and Y-STR diversity. The genetic uniqueness of the four Himalayan populations examined in this study merits the creation of separate databases for individual identification, parentage analysis, and population genetic studies.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Forensic Sci Int. 2007 Oct 2;172(1):79-83 - PubMed
    1. Int J Legal Med. 1999;112(3):181-3 - PubMed
    1. Am J Hum Genet. 2003 Feb;72(2):281-302 - PubMed
    1. Forensic Sci Int. 2007 Mar 22;167(1):70-6 - PubMed
    1. Nat Rev Genet. 2003 Aug;4(8):598-612 - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources