Journal article
The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population
S Leslie, B Winney, G Hellenthal, D Davison, A Boumertit, T Day, K Hutnik, EC Royrvik, B Cunliffe, DJ Lawson, D Falush, C Freeman, M Pirinen, S Myers, M Robinson, P Donnelly, W Bodmer
Nature | Published : 2015
DOI: 10.1038/nature14230
Abstract
Fine-scale genetic variation between human populations is interesting as a signature of historical demographic events and because of its potential for confounding disease studies. We use haplotype-based statistical methods to analyse genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from a carefully chosen geographically diverse sample of 2,039 individuals from the United Kingdom. This reveals a rich and detailed pattern of genetic differentiation with remarkable concordance between genetic clusters and geography. The regional genetic differentiation and differing patterns of shared ancestry with 6,209 individuals from across Europe carry clear signals of historical demographic events. W..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by Academy of Finland
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank J. Cheshire for his advice. We thank the UK Office for National Statistics, the National Records of Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency for providing the boundaries used for the UK maps. We note that census output is Crown copyright and is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. We further acknowledge the provision of maps from Eurostat, which are copyright EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries. We acknowledge support from the Wellcome Trust (072974/Z/03/Z, 088262/Z/09/Z, 075491/Z/04/Z, 075491/Z/04/A, 075491/Z/04/B, 090532/Z/09/Z, 084818/Z/08/Z, 095552/Z/11/Z, 085475/Z/08/Z, 098387/Z/12/Z, 098386/Z/12/Z), the Academy of Finland (257654) and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (APP1053756). P.D. was supported in part by a Wolfson-Royal Society Merit Award.