The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population

Abstract

Fine-scale genetic variation between human populations is interesting as a signature of historical demographic events and because of its potential for confounding disease studies. We use haplotype-based statistical methods to analyse genome-wide SNP data from a carefully chosen geographically diverse sample of 2,039 individuals from the United Kingdom (UK). This reveals a rich and detailed pattern of genetic differentiation with remarkable concordance between genetic clusters and geography. The regional genetic differentiation and differing patterns of shared ancestry with 6,209 individuals from across Europe carry clear signals of historical demographic events. We estimate the genetic contribution to SE England from Anglo-Saxon migrations to be under half, identify the regions not carrying genetic material from these migrations, suggest Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to P.D. (donnelly@well.ox.ac.uk). †WFB and PD jointly supervised the work. Supplementary Information is linked to the online version of this paper at www.nature.com/nature. Author Information Genotype data, as well as location information at county level (or aggregated across counties where there are small numbers of samples associated with a particular county), will be made available by the WTCCC access process, via the European Genotype Archive (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ega/). The authors declare no competing financial interests. Leslie et al. Page 2 significant pre-Roman but post-Mesolithic movement into SE England from the Continent, and show that in non-Saxon parts of the UK there exist genetically differentiated subgroups rather than a general “Celtic” population.