posted on 2020-07-28, 10:44authored byNoora R Al-Snan, Safia A Messaoudi, Yahya M Khubrani, Jon H Wetton, Mark A Jobling, Moiz Bakhiet
We have determined the distribution of Y-chromosomal haplotypes and predicted haplogroups in the ethnically diverse
Kingdom of Bahrain, a small archipelago in the Arabian Gulf. Paternal population structure within Bahrain was investigated
using the 27 Y-STRs (short tandem repeats) in the Yfler Plus kit to generate haplotypes from 562 unrelated Bahraini males,
sub-divided into four geographical regions—Northern, Capital, Southern and Muharraq. Yfler Plus provided a signifcant
improvement over the 17-locus Yfler kit in discrimination capacity (from 77% to 87.5% overall), but discrimination capacity
difered widely between regions from 98.4% in Muharraq to 75.2% in the Northern region, an unusually low value possibly
resulting from recent rapid population expansion. Clusters of closely related male lineages were seen, with only 79.4% of
donors displaying unique haplotypes and 59% of instances of shared haplotypes occurring within, rather than between,
regions. Haplogroup prediction indicated diverse origins of the population with a predominance of haplogroups J2 and J1,
both typical of the Arabian Peninsula, but also haplogroups such as B2 and E1b1a likely originating in Africa, and H, L
and R2 likely indicative of migration from South Asia. Haplogroup frequencies difered signifcantly between regions, with
J2 signifcantly more common in the Northern region compared with the Southern, possibly due to diferential settlement
by Baharna and Arabs. Our study shows that paternal lineage population structure can exist even over small geographical
scales, and that highly discriminating genetic tools are required where rapid expansions have occurred within tightly bounded
populations.
History
Citation
Al-Snan, N.R., Messaoudi, S.A., Khubrani, Y.M. et al. Geographical structuring and low diversity of paternal lineages in Bahrain shown by analysis of 27 Y-STRs. Mol Genet Genomics (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-020-01696-4