Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
Department of Genetics, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
PLoS Genet. 2021 Jan 11;17(1):e1009210. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009210. eCollection 2021 Jan.
Modern day Saudi Arabia occupies the majority of historical Arabia, which may have contributed to ancient waves of migration out of Africa. This ancient history has left a lasting imprint in the genetics of the region, including the diverse set of tribes that call Saudi Arabia their home. How these tribes relate to each other and to the world's major populations remains an unanswered question. In an attempt to improve our understanding of the population structure of Saudi Arabia, we conducted genomic profiling of 957 unrelated individuals who self-identify with 28 large tribes in Saudi Arabia. Consistent with the tradition of intra-tribal unions, the subjects showed strong clustering along tribal lines with the distance between clusters correlating with their geographical proximities in Arabia. However, these individuals form a unique cluster when compared to the world's major populations. The ancient origin of these tribal affiliations is supported by analyses that revealed little evidence of ancestral origin from within the 28 tribes. Our results disclose a granular map of population structure and have important implications for future genetic studies into Mendelian and common diseases in the region.
现代沙特阿拉伯占据了历史上阿拉伯半岛的大部分地区，这可能促成了古代从非洲的多次移民浪潮。这段古代历史在该地区的基因中留下了持久的印记，包括将沙特阿拉伯称为家园的多样化部落群体。这些部落如何相互关联以及与世界主要人群相关联仍然是一个未解决的问题。为了增进我们对沙特阿拉伯人口结构的了解，我们对 957 名无血缘关系的个体进行了基因组分析，这些个体自我认同于沙特阿拉伯的 28 个大部落。与部落内部通婚的传统一致，这些个体沿着部落线表现出强烈的聚类，聚类之间的距离与他们在阿拉伯半岛的地理位置相近相关。然而，与世界主要人群相比，这些个体形成了一个独特的聚类。这些部落关系的古老起源得到了分析的支持，这些分析显示，几乎没有证据表明这些部落内部存在祖先起源。我们的研究结果揭示了人口结构的详细图谱，对未来该地区孟德尔和常见疾病的遗传研究具有重要意义。
