A Genome-Wide Search for Greek and Jewish Admixture in the Kashmiri Population

The Kashmiri population is an ethno-linguistic group that resides in the Kashmir Valley in northern India. A longstanding hypothesis is that this population derives ancestry from Jewish and/or Greek sources. There is historical and archaeological evidence of ancient Greek presence in India and Kashmir. Further, some historical accounts suggest ancient Hebrew ancestry as well. To date, it has not been determined whether signatures of Greek or Jewish admixture can be detected in the Kashmiri population. Using genome-wide genotyping and admixture detection methods, we determined there are no significant or substantial signs of Greek or Jewish admixture in modern-day Kashmiris. The ancestry of Kashmiri Tibetans was also determined, which showed signs of admixture with populations from northern India and west Eurasia. These results contribute to our understanding of the existing population structure in northern India and its surrounding geographical areas. DNA was collected from 15 Kashmiri individuals from the Kashmir Valley who provided written consent. The families of these individuals have resided in the Kashmir Valley for at least three generations and have no history of marriages outside of the valley or to a non-Kashmiri. Sixteen Kashmiri Tibetans from Srinagar, India, who have Tibetan ancestry and now practice Islam, were also genotyped. We performed further genotyping on a previously undescribed population of 32 first- and second-generation Tibetan exiles in McLeod Ganj, which included two individuals from the Tibetan Children’s Village, to serve as population references. These individuals were then genotyped for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using the Affymetrix Genome-Wide Human SNP Array 6.0.