Genetic structure of Tibeto-Burman populations of Bangladesh: evaluating the gene flow along the sides of Bay-of-Bengal

PLoS One. 2013 Oct 9;8(10):e75064. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0075064. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Human settlement and migrations along sides of Bay-of-Bengal have played a vital role in shaping the genetic landscape of Bangladesh, Eastern India and Southeast Asia. Bangladesh and Northeast India form the vital land bridge between the South and Southeast Asia. To reconstruct the population history of this region and to see whether this diverse region geographically acted as a corridor or barrier for human interaction between South Asia and Southeast Asia, we, for the first time analyzed high resolution uniparental (mtDNA and Y chromosome) and biparental autosomal genetic markers among aboriginal Bangladesh tribes currently speaking Tibeto-Burman language. All the three studied populations; Chakma, Marma and Tripura from Bangladesh showed strikingly high homogeneity among themselves and strong affinities to Northeast Indian Tibeto-Burman groups. However, they show substantially higher molecular diversity than Northeast Indian populations. Unlike Austroasiatic (Munda) speakers of India, we observed equal role of both males and females in shaping the Tibeto-Burman expansion in Southern Asia. Moreover, it is noteworthy that in admixture proportion, TB populations of Bangladesh carry substantially higher mainland Indian ancestry component than Northeast Indian Tibeto-Burmans. Largely similar expansion ages of two major paternal haplogroups (O2a and O3a3c), suggested that they arose before the differentiation of any language group and approximately at the same time. Contrary to the scenario proposed for colonization of Northeast India as male founder effect that occurred within the past 4,000 years, we suggest a significantly deep colonization of this region. Overall, our extensive analysis revealed that the population history of South Asian Tibeto-Burman speakers is more complex than it was suggested before.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Bangladesh
  • DNA, Mitochondrial / genetics
  • Gene Flow / genetics
  • Genetics, Population / methods*
  • Geography
  • Haplotypes / genetics
  • Humans

Substances

  • DNA, Mitochondrial

Grants and funding

K.T. was supported by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (GENESIS: BSC0121), Government of India. L.S. was supported by a Bose Fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and Bhatnagar fellowship from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India. G.C. was supported by the Centre of Excellence of the Estonian Biocentre and A.K.P. was supported by European Social Fund's Doctoral Studies and Internationationalisation Programme DoRa. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.