Fine-Scale Population Admixture Landscape of Tai-Kadai-Speaking Maonan in Southwest China Inferred From Genome-Wide SNP Data

• Published in: Frontiers in genetics 2022-02, Vol.13, p.815285-815285
• Main Authors: Chen, Jing, He, Guanglin, Ren, Zheng, Wang, Qiyan, Liu, Yubo, Zhang, Hongling, Yang, Meiqing, Zhang, Han, Ji, Jingyan, Zhao, Jing, Guo, Jianxin, Chen, Jinwen, Zhu, Kongyang, Yang, Xiaomin, Wang, Rui, Ma, Hao, Tao, Le, Liu, Yilan, Shen, Qu, Yang, Wenjiao, Wang, Chuan-Chao, Huang, Jiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: admixture history; east Asian; ethnolinguistic diversity; fine-scale genetic structure; Genetics; Tai–Kadai-speaking Maonan
• ISSN: 1664-8021; 1664-8021
• DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2022.815285

Guizhou Province harbors extensive ethnolinguistic and cultural diversity with Sino-Tibetan-, Hmong-Mien-, and Tai-Kadai-speaking populations. However, previous genetic analyses mainly focused on the genetic admixture history of the former two linguistic groups. The admixture history of Tai-Kadai-speaking populations in Guizhou needed to be characterized further. Thus, we genotyped genome-wide SNP data from 41 Tai-Kadai-speaking Maonan people and made a comprehensive population genetic analysis to explore their genetic origin and admixture history based on the pattern of the sharing alleles and haplotypes. We found a genetic affinity among geographically different Tai-Kadai-speaking populations, especially for Guizhou Maonan people and reference Maonan from Guangxi. Furthermore, formal tests based on the / -statistics further identified an adjacent connection between Maonan and geographically adjacent Hmong-Mien and Sino-Tibetan people, which was consistent with their historically documented shared material culture (Zhang et al., iScience, 2020, 23, 101032). Fitted qpAdm-based two-way admixture models with ancestral sources from northern and southern East Asians demonstrated that Maonan people were an admixed population with primary ancestry related to Guangxi historical people and a minor proportion of ancestry from Northeast Asians, consistent with their linguistically supported southern China origin. Here, we presented the landscape of genetic structure and diversity of Maonan people and a simple demographic model for their evolutionary process. Further whole-genome-sequence-based projects can be presented with more detailed information about the population history and adaptative history of the Guizhou Maonan people.