Field of Science

Yet another ADMIXTURE post.

I've made squinty eyes at enough ADMIXTURE charts by now that I'm starting to see the trends that keep popping up under different types of runs (reference populations, K numbers, etc). While things begin to break down at high K values, they remain pretty consistent at low K values. I am almost always ~10% Near Eastern (or Middle Eastern, or West Asian, or whatever you want to call it), ~40% South European, and ~50% North European. I think I can take at least that much as gospel at this point. When Native Americans are in the mix, I am always at least 1% Native American. I also often get blips of South/East Asian, but I am still not convinced that that one isn't just noise.

Razib's latest ADMIXTURE run, which I've included here, is typical of what I just described above. It is also almost exactly what came up for me at Dodecad (DOD493). The "Brown Dude" I've included at the bottom of the chart is my boyfriend. His parents are from Karnataka, in southwest India, and his results don't surprise me. I am used to looking at Bengali ADMIXTURE because of the samples in Razib's dataset, and BD's results differ mainly in that he has more West Asian and less East Asian. I'd say that's pretty geographically sound.

On a personal note, 23andMe thinks that there's a 0% possibility that BD and I are related, so that's a relief. He's also not a carrier for the two diseases that I'm a carrier for, which is also a relief. We both have the genes for wet earwax, photic sneeze reflex, and fast caffeine metabolism (I know you were dying to know), so our children will likely be brown-eyed, sticky-eared, constantly sneezing coffee guzzlers, right?

5 comments:

  1. re: ear wax, you are homozygote, so that is correct. if you were heterozygote you'd have to look at BD to double check of course.

    BD consistently has the west asian type element in my runs. i think this is something common the west coast of south asia, north to south.

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  2. The Dar is heterozygotic for wet earwax. I just like saying "brown-eyed, sticky-eared children". Before 23andMe I didn't know there were people with dry earwax.

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  3. Before 23andMe I didn't know there were people with dry earwax.

    most people in east asia have it. my family is heterozygote. one of my siblings and my mom has it. the rest of us do not.

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  4. Is admixture only interesting when you have multi-continental ancestry? E.g., my daughter recently did 23-and-Me and the results just said all northern European, mostly Celtic, but no discrimination between Welsh, Irish, Scottish, or French. Where do you get that kind of breakdown? thanks,

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  5. 23andMe has very underwhelming ancestry results. To get better results you have to do an independent analysis. I am lucky in that I have several genetics geek friends to do that kind of stuff for me (I don't have the slightest clue how to run ADMIXTURE). You can keep an eye on several genetics blogs (there are tons, Dodecad is a big one) and wait for calls for data that apply to you.

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