Distinct Genetic Variation and Heterogeneity of the Iranian Population Publisher Pubmed



Mehrjoo Z¹ ; Fattahi Z¹ ; Beheshtian M¹ ; Mohseni M¹ ; Poustchi H² ; Ardalani F¹ ; Jalalvand K¹ ; Arzhangi S¹ ; Mohammadi Z² ; Khoshbakht S¹ ; Najafi F³ ; Nikuei P⁴ ; Haddadi M⁵ ; Zohrehvand E¹ Show All Authors
Source: PLoS Genetics Published:2019

Abstract

Iran, despite its size, geographic location and past cultural influence, has largely been a blind spot for human population genetic studies. With only sparse genetic information on the Iranian population available, we pursued its genome-wide and geographic characterization based on 1021 samples from eleven ethnic groups. We show that Iranians, while close to neighboring populations, present distinct genetic variation consistent with long-standing genetic continuity, harbor high heterogeneity and different levels of consanguinity, fall apart into a cluster of similar groups and several admixed ones and have experienced numerous language adoption events in the past. Our findings render Iran an important source for human genetic variation in Western and Central Asia, will guide adequate study sampling and assist the interpretation of putative disease-implicated genetic variation. Given Iran’s internal genetic heterogeneity, future studies will have to consider ethnic affiliations and possible admixture. © 2019 Mehrjoo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.