Check out our dive into 50,000 years of Indian genetic history!🇮🇳
🧬~2,700 genomes
🦴Neanderthal/Denisovan DNA
🌾Hunter-gatherer, Iranian farmer & Steppe ancestry
🩺Health-linked, population-specific variants

@lauritsskov.bsky.social & Priya Moorjani
#Genomics #India #HumanEvolution #PopulationGenetics

Had the opportunity to present my work on Lactase Persistence in South Asia, in collaboration with Meaghan Maroon, at #probgen25! Excited to share our findings with this amazing community!

We also found that a majority of ancestry in present-day Indians trace back to an out-of-Africa migration around 50,000 years ago. [10/11]

We find many instances of both Neanderthal and Denisovan segments which have reached high frequency in India – many envolved in the immune response. One such segment is a Neanderthal haplotype which is a major genetic risk factor for severe COVID. [9/11]

The amount of both Neanderthal and Denisovan sequence correlates with Andamanese hunter gatherer related ancestry (AHG). This suggests that the ancestors of this population may have unique encounters with both Neanderthals and Denisovans (perhaps in South East Asia). [8/11]

We find around 200 Mb of Neanderthal sequence and 300 Mb of Denisovan sequence which is unique to India! We also find the while most Neanderthal sequence worldwide is shared most Denisovan sequence is unique to different regions. [7/11]

We find a highly diverse set of archaic segments in India. We are able to reconstruct more of the introgressing Denisovan and Neanderthal genome from just 2700 individuals from India compared to 27,566 individuals from Iceland. [6/11]

In LASI-DAD individuals, the majority (>90%) of the homozygosity stems from small HBD segments (rather than long HBD segments, >8cM), suggesting a primary role of historical founder events as the source of homozygosity. [5/11]

Using Andamanese hunter gatherers (AHG)-related, Iran farmer-related and Steppe pastoralist-related populations we inferred the genetic composition of the Indian cline individuals. AHG-related ancestry proportion is associated with geography, language and caste affiliation [3/11]

We (Laurits Skov, Priya Moorjani and I) are very happy to share this preprint on the genetic history of India: 50,000 years of Evolutionary History of India: Insights from ~2,700 Whole Genome Sequences 🇮🇳🧬
doi.org/10.1101/2024...
[1/11]