[Genetic diversity of X-chromosome in populations of aboriginal Siberian ethnic groups: linkage disequilibrium structure and haplotype philogeography of ZFX locus].

The structure of gene pool of the Siberian aboriginal population has been described based on the data on polymorphism of ZFX gene located on X-chromosome. In ten populations under study 49 haplotypes have been determined, three of which are presented with high frequency. Comparing the obtained results with the available data from HapMap project unique "African" haplotypes were revealed, which occurred in Yoruba population with the frequency of 3-7% and were not found in other populations. A coefficient of genetic differentiation of the Siberian ethnic groups under study amounted to 0.0486. Correlation analysis involving Mantel test did not reveal any significant correlations between a matrix of genetic distances and the matrices of geographic, linguistic and anthropological differences, where a maximum coefficient was obtained at the comparison with the anthropological matrix. Phylogenetic analysis proved strong isolation of African population from the other investigated ethnic groups. The Siberian populations were subdivided into two separate clusters: the first one included Yakuts, Buryats and Kets, while the second cluster included Altaians, Tuvinians and Khanty. A principal component analysis enabled to combine the investigated populations in three groups, which clearly differed by a degree of manifestation of Caucasoid and Mongoloid components. The first group included Europe inhabitants and one of Khanty populations, the second one--populations of South Siberia and China inhabitants. Mongoloid populations of East Siberia, the Japanese and Kets were combined in the third group. The results of barrier analysis revealed similar structure of genetic differentiation in the Siberian population. Linkage disequilibrium structure was obtained for six ethnic groups of Siberia. A unified linkage block by ten SNP of ZFX gene was found in five of the presented ethnic groups (excluding Ket population).