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Dual origins of the Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz: the admixture of Bronze age Siberian and Medieval Niru’un Mongolian Y chromosomes

Journal of Human Genetics volume 67, pages 175–180 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Kyrgyz are a trans-border ethnic group, mainly living in Kyrgyzstan. Previous genetic investigations of Central Asian populations have repeatedly investigated the Central Asian Kyrgyz. However, from the standpoint of human evolution and genetic diversity, Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz is one of the more poorly studied populations. In this study, we analyzed the non-recombining portion of the Y-chromosome from 298 male Kyrgyz samples from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China, using a high-resolution analysis of 108 biallelic markers and 17 or 24 STRs. First, via a Y-SNP-based PCA plot, Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz tended to cluster with other Kyrgyz population and are located in the West Asian and Central Asian group. Second, we found that the Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz display a high proportion of Y-lineage R1a1a1b2a2a-Z2125, related to Bronze Age Siberian, and followed by Y-lineage C2b1a3a1-F3796, related to Medieval Niru’un Mongols, such as Uissun tribe from Kazakhs. In these two dominant lineages, two unique recent descent clusters have been detected via NETWORK analysis, respectively, but they have nearly the same TMRCA ages (about 13th–14th centuries). This finding once again shows that the expansions of Mongol Empire had a striking effect on the Central Asian gene pool.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the trust of the sample donors. This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China (19VJX074), Major Project of National Social Science Foundation of China (20&ZD212), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32070576), the Scientific and Technology Committee of Shanghai Municipality (18490750300), the National Key Research and Development Program (2020YFE0201600), Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (2017SHZDZX01), and the 111 Project (B13016).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Shao-qing Wen, Pan-xin Du.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Shao-qing Wen

  2. B&R International Joint Laboratory for Eurasian Anthropology, MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Shao-qing Wen, Pan-xin Du, Chang Sun, Yi-ran Xu, Hai-liang Meng & Hui Li

  3. Multi-Omics Innovative Research Center of Forensic Identifification; Department of Forensic Genetics, School of Forensic Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China

    Wei Cui & Bo-feng Zhu

  4. Institute of the Investigation, School of Criminal Justice, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, 100088, China

    Mei-sen Shi

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Wen, Sq., Du, Px., Sun, C. et al. Dual origins of the Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz: the admixture of Bronze age Siberian and Medieval Niru’un Mongolian Y chromosomes. J Hum Genet 67, 175–180 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s10038-021-00979-x

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