Science! By Ryan Whitwam May. 2, 2014 3:01 pm
GPS has changed the way we get around the planet, but an international team of scientists has developed a different kind of GPS — a tool for locating your ancestors, as opposed to yourself. In this case, GPS stands for Geographic Population Structure. It’s a new genetic analysis tool that can scan a subjects DNA and estimate (with a high degree of accuracy) where their ancestors came from a millennia ago.
This technique relies on parsing out so-called genetic admixture, a process by which previously separated populations recombine over time and interbreed. The tool makes estimates about a subject’s genetic origins by using 100,000 DNA signatures as a baseline. The researchers claim the tool is considerably more powerful than previous methods because it uses all 44 diploid autosomal chromosomes, as opposed to the two sex chromosomes.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of GPS, the researchers tested residents of 10 villages in Sardinia. The results of this test placed 25% in the correct village, and the remainder in less than 50km of their true origins. Residents of 20 islands in Oceania were also analyzed using GPS, with 90 being placed on the right island based entirely on their DNA.
It’s actually a remarkably simple tool when you get down to it — GPS is essentially triangulating a person’s geographic origin based on genetic ratios. That’s why it gives an exact location that might be close to, but a few miles away from, a person’s ancestral village. This also means GPS is more useful for individuals who have fairly uniform heritage — someone whose parents were from vastly different backgrounds might be placed in the middle of an ocean. Although, the system offers more data on genetic makeup than the final location.
GPS isn’t just for fun — it has the potential to make medical treatment more specialized. People from a similar geographic area tend to have similar genetic makeups, so different treatments might be preferable based on that. GPS is much quicker and easier than a full genetic workup too. One of the researchers has created a website where you can test GPS by inputting a few data points. A future version will allow users to upload data directly from services like 23andMe to get more accurate results.
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This technique relies on parsing out so-called genetic admixture, a process by which previously separated populations recombine over time and interbreed. The tool makes estimates about a subject’s genetic origins by using 100,000 DNA signatures as a baseline. The researchers claim the tool is considerably more powerful than previous methods because it uses all 44 diploid autosomal chromosomes, as opposed to the two sex chromosomes.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of GPS, the researchers tested residents of 10 villages in Sardinia. The results of this test placed 25% in the correct village, and the remainder in less than 50km of their true origins. Residents of 20 islands in Oceania were also analyzed using GPS, with 90 being placed on the right island based entirely on their DNA.
It’s actually a remarkably simple tool when you get down to it — GPS is essentially triangulating a person’s geographic origin based on genetic ratios. That’s why it gives an exact location that might be close to, but a few miles away from, a person’s ancestral village. This also means GPS is more useful for individuals who have fairly uniform heritage — someone whose parents were from vastly different backgrounds might be placed in the middle of an ocean. Although, the system offers more data on genetic makeup than the final location.
GPS isn’t just for fun — it has the potential to make medical treatment more specialized. People from a similar geographic area tend to have similar genetic makeups, so different treatments might be preferable based on that. GPS is much quicker and easier than a full genetic workup too. One of the researchers has created a website where you can test GPS by inputting a few data points. A future version will allow users to upload data directly from services like 23andMe to get more accurate results.
More...
