Samples used in the study
The following procedures were in accordance with the humane and ethical research principles and were approved by the Ethical Committee of Institute of Forensic Science, Ministry of Justice, China.A total of 100 samples from unrelated Uyghur males recruited from southern Xinjiang were collected. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. For each individual, there was no consanguineous marriage or intermarriages with other ethnic groups within the latest three generations.23 different populations in Eastern Asia, Central Asian and Europe(they did not select middle eastern haplotypes in this paper, therefore, this paper only tells us relationship between Uyghurs and Eastern Asian,Central Asian(Kazakh and Afghan-Pathan) and European) containing a total of 7696 haplotypes were selected as reference populations . The geographical locations of the reference populations were shown in Fig. 1.
Result:
The relatively close relationship between the Uyghur population and the Hungarian population is consistent with the Asian origin hypothesis of Hungarians. The proximity between the Uyghur population and the Mongolian population could be speculatively explained by the migration of Orkhon Uyghurs, proposed ancestors of present Uyghurs, from Mongolia to Xinjiang around the 9th century. The migration allows gene flow between the Orkhon Uyghurs and the indigenes in Xinjiang, such as Tocharians, that are genetically similar to northern Europeans. The fact that the indigenous population is much larger than the Orkhon Uyghur population may also explain why the Uyghur is genetically closer to European populations than Eastern Asian populations as is shown in this study.
this paper tells us, European population is genetically closer to Uyghurs than Eastern Asian. now let’s look at the Y haplogroup of Uyghurs.
Y haplogroup of Uyghurs also tells the same story that about 16% of Uyghurs are belong to R1a1 ,which is European population’s dominant haplogourp.
Analysis of genetic admixture in Uyghur using the 26 Y-STR loci system