Echoes from Sepharad: signatures on the maternal gene pool of crypto-Jewish descendants.

ABSTRACT: The majority of genetic studies on Jewish populations have been focused on Ashkenazim, and genetic data from the Sephardic original source, the Iberian Peninsula, are particularly scarce. Regarding the mitochondrial genome, the available information is limited to a single Portuguese village, Belmonte, where just two different lineages (a single one corresponding to 93.3%) were found in 30 individuals. Aiming at disclosing the ancestral maternal background of the Portuguese Jewry, we enlarged the sampling to other crypto-Jewish descendants in the Bragança district (NE Portugal). Fifty-seven complete mtDNA genomes were newly sequenced and - in contrast with Belmonte - a high level of diversity was found, with five haplogroups (HV0b, N1, T2b11, T2e and U2e) being putatively identified as Seph

SUBMITTER: Nogueiro I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4402619 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature