Early medieval genetic data from Ural region evaluated in the light of archaeological evidence of ancient Hungarians

The ancient Hungarians originated from the Ural region of Russia, and migrated through the Middle-Volga region and the Eastern European steppe into the Carpathian Basin during the ninth century AD. Their Homeland was probably in the southern Trans-Ural region, where the Kushnarenkovo culture was disseminated. In the Cis-Ural region Lomovatovo and Nevolino cultures are archaeologically related to ancient Hungarians. In this study we describe maternal and paternal lineages of 36 individuals from these regions and nine Hungarian Conquest period individuals from today’s Hungary, as well as shallow shotgun genome data from the Trans-Uralic Uyelgi cemetery. We point out the genetic continuity between the three chronological horizons of Uyelgi cemetery, which was a burial place of a rather endogamous population. Using phylogenetic and population genetic analyses we demonstrate the genetic connection between Trans-, Cis-Ural and the Carpathian Basin on various levels. The analyses of this new Uralic dataset fill a gap of population genetic research of Eurasia, and reshape the conclusions previously drawn from tenth to eleventh century ancient mitogenomes and Y-chromosomes from Hungary.

Early Medieval Genetic Data from Ural Region Evaluated in the Light of Archaeological Evidence of Ancient Hungarians

The ancient Hungarians originated from the Ural region of Russia, and migrated through the Middle-Volga region and the Eastern European steppe into the Carpathian Basin during the 9th century AD. Their Homeland was probably in the southern Trans-Ural region, where the Kushnarenkovo culture disseminated. In the Cis-Ural region Lomovatovo and Nevolino cultures are archaeologically related to ancient Hungarians. In this study we describe maternal and paternal lineages of 36 individuals from these regions and nine Hungarian Conquest period individuals from today’s Hungary, as well as shallow shotgun genome data from the Trans-Uralic Uyelgi cemetery. We point out the genetic continuity between the three chronological horizons of Uyelgi cemetery, which was a burial place of a rather endogamous population. Using phylogenetic and population genetic analyses we demonstrate the genetic connection between Trans-, Cis-Ural and the Carpathian Basin on various levels. The analyses of this new Uralic dataset fill a gap of population genetic research of Eurasia, and reshape the conclusions previously drawn from 10-11th century ancient mitogenomes and Y-chromosomes from Hungary.

A rapid, accurate approach to inferring pedigrees in endogamous populations

Accurate reconstruction of pedigrees from genetic data remains a challenging problem. Pedigree inference algorithms are often trained only on urban European-descent families, which are comparatively ‘outbred’ compared to many other global populations. Relationship categories can be difficult to distinguish (e.g. half-sibships versus avuncular) without external information. Furthermore, published software cannot accommodate endogamous populations where there may be reticulations within a pedigree or elevated haplotype sharing. We design a simple, rapid algorithm which initially uses only high-confidence first degree relationships to seed a machine learning step based on the number of identical by descent segments. Additionally, we define a new statistic to polarize individuals to ancestor versus descendant generation. We test our approach in a sample of 700 individuals from northern Namibia, sampled from an endogamous population. Due to a culture of concurrent relationships in this population, there is a high proportion of half-sibships. We accurately identify first through third degree relationships for all categories, including half-sibships, half-avuncular-ships etc. We further validate our approach in the Barbados Asthma Genetics Study (BAGS) dataset. Accurate reconstruction of pedigrees holds promise for tracing allele frequency trajectories, improved phasing and other population genomic questions.

Co-morbid Obsessive-compulsive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder in Highly Endogamous Population: Which Came First?

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of co-morbidity with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) among bipolar disorder (BD) patients in order to assess the impact of OCD on the socio-demographic and clinical features of patients in a highly endogamous population. A cohort study was carried out on 396 patients enrolled between November 2011 to October 2013. We employed the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WHO-CIDI) and Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition-IV/Clinical Version for diagnoses, the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Symptom Checklist for scoring OCD. Patients were grouped in BD patients with OCD (BD-OCD) and BD patients without OCD.Groups were compared for socio-demographic and clinical variables. There were no significant differences for age, gender, BMI, and marital status, between BD patients with and without OCD. We found significant differences in level of education (P = 0.022), occupation status (P = 0.025), household income, (P = 0.049), cigarette smoking (P = 0.038), sheesha smoking (P = 0.007), and prevalence of consanguinity (P = 0.036) among these groups. Number of hospitalizations and Young Mania Rating Scale score were not different among BD patients with or without OCD whereas there were significant differences in Hamilton-Depression score, Clinical Global Impression-BD Score, duration of illnesses, and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). Also specific phobia, somatization, depression, mania, any mood disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD and personality disorder were more common in BD than OCD–BD group. This study confirms that BD-OCD is a common co-morbidity, largely under-recognized in clinical practice, which may significantly change BD presentation and outcome.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.