Regional differences in the distribution of the sub-Saharan, West Eurasian, and South Asian mtDNA lineages in Yemen
Abstract
The article presents the first regional level mtDNA analysis of Yemeni population. An extensive database of mtDNA sequences from North and East African, Middle Eastern and Indian populations was analyzed in order to provide a context for the regional Yemeni mtDNA datasets.
The groups of western Yemen appear to be most closely related to Middle Eastern and North African populations, while the eastern Yemeni population from Hadramawt is most closely related to East Africa, particularly Ethiopia. As the Yemeni population has the highest frequency of R0a haplotypes detected to date, this region may be the site of the initial expansion of this basal branch of out-of-Africa phylogeny.
We conclude that the Yemeni gene pool is highly stratified both regionally and temporally.