Predicted Haplogroups in the Slovak Haban Population

Y-STR Haplotypes and Predicted Haplogroups in the Slovak Hoban Population

Eva Petrejčíková^a, Daniela Siváková^b, Miroslav Soták, Jarmila Bernasovská, Ivan Bernasovský, Adriana Sovičová^a, Iveta Boroňová^a, Alexandra Bôžiková^a, Dana Gabriková^a, Petra Švíčková^a, Soňa Mačeková^a, Jana Čarnogurská^a

Abstract

The Habans are a group of Hutterites, who converted to Catholicism and retained a separate ethnic identity in Western Slovakia. In the present day we can find several Haban communities who have maintained their cultural identity as descendents of the Hutterite population. Twelve Y-chromosome short tandem repeat (STR) polymorphisms included in the Powerplex® Y multiplex kit were analyzed in 39 unrelated males. The prediction of Y-haplogroups from Y-STR data was performed by the Athey Haplogroup Predictor program. The most frequent haplogroups were E1b1b (43.57%) and R1b (30.77%). Results indicate that the gene pool of descendents of Habans was different from the gene pool of the Slovak majority population, and that Habans have remained isolated from the surrounding populations.

a Department of Biology, University of Prešov, Slovakia

b Department of Anthropology, Comenius Univ., Bratislava, Slovakia

Address for correspondence: Eva Petrejčíková, petrejci@unipo.sk

Received: July 13, 2009; accepted September 17, 2009

Introduction

The forerunners of the Hutterites were Anabaptist refugees from Switzerland, Tyrol (Northern Italy and Southern Austria), Bavaria, Hesse and Württemberg, who settled in Moravia in Central Europe (today in the Czech Republic). Moravia was to become the country of Hutterite origin. They were named after Jacob Hutter, who was a Tyrolean and Moravian Anabaptist leader (Hostetler, 1997). A basic tenet of Hutterian society has always been absolute pacifism, forbidding its members from taking part in military activities, taking orders, wearing a formal uniform (such as a soldier's or a police officer's) or contributing war taxes. This has led to expulsion or persecution of the Anabaptists in the several lands, such as Moravia, in which they have lived.

At the beginning of the 16^th century some Hutterites migrated to Slovakia (then in the Kingdom of Hungary) for the first time (Kalesný, 1981), where they were welcomed by Hungarian lords in defiance of the emperor in Vienna (Hostetler, 1997). The western Slovakia had stayed unoccupied by Turks and enjoyed a relative freedom (Kalesný, 1981). Their first village was Sobotište, where they established their first settlement. Between the years 1546 and 1620, the Hutterites built twenty-three farming communities (Hofs) where they practiced their own religion with political and economic autonomy. It is believed that their total population reached 25,000, who created more than sixty Hofs in Slovakia and Moravia. The number of inhabitants was about five hundred in each Hof.

In the late 1800’s, during the subsequent re-Catholicization of the Slovak population, many Hutterites moved to Transylvania (Romania), Ukraine, Russia, and to the Molotschna district north of the Black Sea (Kalesný, 1981). Migrations of the Hutterites in Europe are shown in Figure 1. The majority of Hutterian Brethren migrated to North America in 1873, where in the United States they chose the prairie land of South Dakota for settlement, while others chose Canada (Hostetler, 1997).

Figure 1. Hutterite migration in Europe in the 16^th – 17^th centuries.

According to the Hutterite Chronicles the exact number of Hutterites was 757 who stayed in Slovakia in four regions (Sobotište, Veľké Leváre, Moravský Svätý Ján, Trenčín). They converted to Catholicism, but retained a separate ethnic identity as Habans until the 19^th century (Weisensee and Siváková, 2003). Today in western Slovakia there are several small communities that still identify themselves as the descendents of the Hutterite population. The exact number of Slovak Habans has not been officially counted; for comparison, the number of American Hutterites is about 45,000. They live scattered throughout the North American prairies in approximately 460 colonies (Hutterites, 2009).

In this study we estimated the frequency of the major Y-chromosome haplogroups from Y-STR data by use of the web-accessible program, Whit Athey`s Haplogroup Predictor. By analysis of the genetic structure of the Y-chromosome, the paternal ancestry of the Haban population and its genetic history can be revealed.

Materials and Methods

Blood samples were collected from healthy and unrelated Slovak Haban males from three villages in northwestern Slovakia: Sobotište (19 samples), Veľké Leváre (11 samples) and Moravský Svätý Ján (9 samples). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Genomic DNA was extracted from blood by using the Jet Quick DNA tissue kit (Genomed GmbH, Germany) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Male samples were chosen from individuals of Haban ancestry according to chronicles which are recognized sources describing the structure of the Haban community.

The amplification was performed on the Biometra1 T-Personal 48 thermal cycles using the Powerplex Y System Kit (Promega). Amplified products were detected in a process of capillary electrophoresis using the MegaBACE1 1000 genetic analyzer (GE Healthcare). Alleles were named according to the recommendations of the DNA Commission of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (Bär et al., 1997).

Pairwise distance based on Φ_st values and the statistical significance (10,000 permutations) was calculated using Arlequin version 3.1 software (Excoffier et al., 2006). The distances were visualized in two-dimensional space using the multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis included in the SPSS 15.0 software. Prediction of Y-chromosome haplogroups from Y-STR values was performed using Whit Athey`s Haplogroup Predictor, version 5 (see Web Resources). The predictor determines the probability that a Y-STR haplotype belongs to a given haplogroup (Athey, 2006). We chose a version of the program capable of predicting 21 Y-haplogroups (E1b1a, E1b1b, G2a, G2c, H, I1, I2a*, I2a1, I2b*, I2b1, J1, J2a1b, J2a1h, J2a1(×J2a1b,J2a1h), J2b, L, N, Q, R1a, R1b, T).

Results and Discussion

Our analysis of twelve Y-chromosome STRs of 39 samples showed 18 different Y-STR haplotypes in the Slovak Haban descendants. Eleven haplotypes were observed only once. The most frequent haplotype, 13-16/17-13-30-24-10-11-13-14-10-12 (DYS19, DYS385a/b, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439) was present in eight cases.

The Hutterite Y-STR data were compared with data previously published for Switzerland (Haas et al., 2006), Tyrol (Austria) (Berger et al., 2005), Slovak population (Rebala et al., 2007), Southern Moravia (Czech Republic), Hungary, Transylvania (Romania), Moldavia, and Ukraine (YHRD, 2009) for nine Y-STRs (DYS391, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS19, DYS392, DYS393, DYS390, DYS385). We chose the populations from areas through which the Haban population migrated. The pairwise analysis based on Φ_st values is shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1

Pairwise Distance Based on Φ_st Values Between the Slovak Haban Population and Eight Countries Through Which They Migrated.

Country	Φ_st value	p value
Switzerland	0.0440	0.0499
Tyrol (Austria)	0.0200	0.1435
South Moravia (Czech republic)	0.0132	0.1976
Bratislava, Slovak majority population	0.0634	0.0211
Hungary	0.0446	0.0435
Transylvania (Romania)	0.0282	0.2085
Moldavia	0.0797	0.0353
Kiev, Ukraine	0.0797	0.0075

The smallest genetic distances Φ_st between the Haban population and the other populations were found with South Moravia (Czech Republic) (Φ_st =0.0134). The largest pairwise difference for the Slovak Haban population was seen with the population sample from Ukraine (Φ_st = 0.0832) and that from Moldavia (0.0797), followed by the Slovak population (0.0634). The MDS plot of these differences is depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2. MDS plot based on Φ_st values depicting the relationships among the nine populations

The most frequent haplotypes were found in all three regions that were sampled. This means that although Haban communities were isolated from the surrounding majority population, the genetic structure is not different between the Haban groups. Table 2 shows the Y-STR haplotypes which were observed in the Haban population in three Slovak regions.

Table 2

Y-STR Haplotypes and Predicted Y-Haplogroups in the Slovak Haban Population

Y-Haplotype	DYS391	DYS389I	DYS439	DYS389II	DYS438	DYS437	DYS19	DYS392	DYS393	DYS390	DYS385 a/b	n	Predicted Y-Haplogroup	Probability (%)
H5	10	12	13	29	10	14	13	11	13	24	11-14	1	E1b1b	99.7%
H14	10	13	11	29	11	14	16	11	13	25	11-14	2	R1a	99.9%
H18	10	13	11	29	12	15	14	13	13	24	11-15	1	R1b	100%
H21	10	13	12	29	12	15	14	13	13	24	11-15	4	R1b	100%
H23	10	13	12	30	10	14	13	11	13	24	16-17	8	E1b1b	100%
H24	10	13	12	30	10	15	16	11	14	24	12-13	5	I2a	89.4%
H25	10	13	12	30	11	14	16	11	13	24	11-15	1	R1a	88.3%
H26	10	13	12	30	12	15	14	13	13	25	11-15	1	R1b	100%
H37	10	14	12	31	10	14	14	11	12	24	11-13	1	J1[BES1]	95.8%
H38	10	14	12	32	10	14	13	11	13	24	16-17	3	E1b1b	100%
H40	10	14	13	31	10	14	13	11	13	24	10-14	1	E1b1b	96.1%
H42	10	14	13	32	10	14	13	11	13	24	16-21	4	E1b1b	100%
H45	11	13	10	30	11	14	16	11	13	24	11-15	1	R1a	99.9%
H49	11	13	12	30	12	15	14	13	12	24	11-14	1	R1b	100%
H50	11	13	12	30	12	15	14	13	13	25	11-15	2	R1b	100%
H53	11	13	13	29	12	15	14	13	13	23	11-14	1	R1b	100%
H54	11	13	13	30	12	14	14	13	12	24	11-13	1	R1b	100%
H60	12	14	12	30	12	15	14	13	13	23	11-14	1	R1b	100%

We predicted Y-chromosome haplogroups from our Y-STR data by the use the Y-Haplogroup Predictor Program (Athey, 2006). The Bayesian probability was greater than 90% in all of the samples. Table 3 lists each haplotype for the Haban samples and the corresponding predicted Y-haplogroup.

Table 3

Distribution of Y-Haplogroups in the

Slovak Haban Population (n=39).

Y-Haplogroup	Number	Percent
E1b1b	17	43.59
I2a	5	12.82
J1	1	2.56
R1a	4	10.25
R1b	12	30.77
Total	39	100

We found only five Y-haplogroups from the core 21 Y-haplogroups in the studied population. Haplogroup E1b1b (formerly E3b) was found in 17 individuals and represented 43.6% of the all samples. Previous genetic studies of the Slovak population showed that Haplogroup E1b1b was also found as the second most frequent haplogroup (21%) in the Slovak Romani population (Petrejčíková et al., 2009a), but in the Slovak population as a whole, its frequency was only 7.2% (Petrejčíková et al., 2009b). On the European continent it has the highest concentration in Romania (21.4%), Bulgaria (20.7%) (Cruciani et al., 2004), Albania (45.6%) (Pericic et al., 2005) and Greece (22.7%) (DiGiacomo et al., 2003).

Haplogroup R1b was present in the Slovak Haban population at a level of 30.8% (12 individuals). According to Wiik (2007), in Central Europe Haplogroup R1b forms a west-to-east gradient, with the highest percentages in westernmost Germany. Haplogroup R1b was the second most prevalent haplogroup in the Czech population (28%) (Luca et al., 2007) and was found as the third most frequent in the Slovak population as a whole (13.2%) (Petrejčíková et al., 2009b). A high frequency of Haplogroup R1b was also found in the Swiss (50%) and Tyrol population (59.4%) (Wiik, 2007).

The remaining haplogroups, I2a, R1a, and J1 were observed in smaller numbers of participants (I2a-12.8%; R1a-10.2% and J1- 2.6%). In the Slovak population as a whole, Haplogroups R1a and I2a were the most common Y-haplogroups with a frequency of 38% and 18.4% (Petrejčíková et al., 2009b).

According to the obtained results of Y-chromosome variation, the genetic structure of Haban population was influenced by the populations from areas through which they migrated, and shows a high degree of genetic relatedness with the population living in South Moravia, where the Hutterian Brethren were first established. On the other hand, results demonstrate genetic differentiation between the Haban population and the Slovak majority population. The Haban population lives as a collection of genetically isolated founder populations. This theory was confirmed by Weisensee and Siváková (2003). According to this study the Habans have remained isolated from the surrounding populations, and genetic drift has played an important part in the history of this population. Recently presented data from population structural studies and surname analysis in the three Haban villages also showed that all structural changes occurred over time within the Hutterite population (Siváková et al., 2000).

The data we have obtained may be useful for future population studies and for the comparison of the Slovak Haban population with Hutterite ethnic groups living in the USA and Canada.

Quality Control

The laboratory has previously participated in the Y-STR haplotype reference database (see Web Resources) quality assurance exercise in 2008, where five quality control samples were typed correctly with the Power-Plex Y System.

Acknowledgments

This publication was a realization of the project called ”Excellence Centre of Animal and Human Ecology,” supported by of The Research and Development Operational Program, funded by the European Fund of Regional Development (EFRD). We are grateful to all the donors for providing the samples and to all people who contributed to their collection.

Web Resources

Haplogroup Predictor Program

http://www.hprg.com/hapest5/

The Hutterian Brethren web site

http://www.hutterites.org

YHRD Y-STR haplotype reference database

http://www.yhrd.org

Arlequin Software for Population Genetics

http://cmpg.unibe.ch/software/arlequin3/

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