“德系犹太人”线粒体DNA的测序显示，母系犹太人可能起源于欧洲。发表在本期Nature Communications上的这项研究表明，“德系犹太人”的母系并不像人们有时所认为的那样是来自近东或高加索，而是发源于欧洲地中海地区。
“德系犹太人”的起源仍有很大争议。利用有关从父方遗传的Y染色体、从母方遗传的线粒体和从双亲遗传的常染色体的遗传信息所做的关系重建研究得出了矛盾的结论。其中一些研究表明他们的祖先主要来自近东（包括以色列/巴勒斯坦、黎巴嫩、叙利亚和约旦在内的一个地区），而其他研究则表明他们的祖先大部分来自高加索。
Martin Richards及同事对来自欧洲、高加索和近东的74个线粒体基因组进行了测序，对另外3500个线粒体基因组进行了分析，从而为“德系犹太人”的宗谱历史提供了一个详细重建结果。该小组发现，“德系犹太人”线粒体DNA的差异中至少80%源于史前的欧洲，而不是近东或高加索。这意味着女性“德系犹太人”可能是在距今大约2000年前在欧洲被同化的。
他们提出，这些结果突显了吸收当地女性和同化她们在欧洲“德系犹太人”社区形成中的重要性，代表着在重建“德系犹太人”宗谱历史方面所迈出的重要一步（生物谷Bioon.com）。
生物谷推荐的英文摘要
Nature Communications DOI:10.1038/ncomms3543
A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages
Marta D. CostaJoana B. PereiraMaria PalaVerónica FernandesAnna Olivieri Alessandro AchilliUgo A. Perego Sergei Rychkov Oksana Naumova Jii Hatina Scott R. Woodward Ken Khong Eng Vincent Macaulay Martin Carr Pedro Soares Luísa Pereira Martin B. Richards
The origins of Ashkenazi Jews remain highly controversial. Like Judaism， mitochondrial DNA is passed along the maternal line. Its variation in the Ashkenazim is highly distinctive， with four major and numerous minor founders. However， due to their rarity in the general population， these founders have been difficult to trace to a source. Here we show that all four major founders， ~40% of Ashkenazi mtDNA variation， have ancestry in prehistoric Europe， rather than the Near East or Caucasus. Furthermore， most of the remaining minor founders share a similar deep European ancestry. Thus the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Levant， as commonly supposed， nor recruited in the Caucasus， as sometimes suggested， but assimilated within Europe. These results point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities， and provide the foundation for a detailed reconstruction of Ashkenazi genealogical history.
