Genetic affinities of Ukrainians from the maternal perspective.

The area of what is now the Ukraine has been the arena of large-scale demographic processes that may have left their traces in the contemporary gene pool of Ukrainians. In this study, we present new mitochondrial DNA data for 607 Ukrainians (hypervariable segment I sequences and coding region polymorphisms). To study the maternal affinities of Ukrainians at the level of separate mitochondrial haplotypes, we apply an original technique, the haplotype co-occurrence analysis. About 20% of the Ukrainian maternal gene pool is represented by lineages highly specific to Ukrainians, but is scarcely found in other populations. About 9% of Ukrainian mtDNA lineages are typical for peoples of the Volga region. We also identified minor gene pool strata (1.6-3.3%), each of which is common in Lithuanians, Estonians, Saami, Nenets, Cornish, and the populations of the North Caucasus.