Urnikyte, AlinaFlores-Bello, AndréMondal, Mayukh, 1989-Molyte, AlmaComas, David, 1969-Calafell i Majó, FrancescBosch Fusté, ElenaKučinskas, Vaidutis2019-07-082019-07-082019Urnikyte A, Flores-Bello A, Mondal M, Molyte A, Comas D, Calafell F et al. Patterns of genetic structure and adaptive positive selection in the Lithuanian population from high-density SNP data. Sci Rep. 2019;9(1):9163. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-45746-32045-2322http://hdl.handle.net/10230/41956The analysis of geographically specific regions and the characterization of fine-scale patterns of genetic diversity may facilitate a much better understanding of the microevolutionary processes affecting local human populations. Here we generated genome-wide high-density SNP genotype data in 425 individuals from six geographical regions in Lithuania and combined our dataset with available ancient and modern data to explore genetic population structure, ancestry components and signatures of natural positive selection in the Lithuanian population. Our results show that Lithuanians are a homogenous population, genetically differentiated from neighbouring populations but within the general expected European context. Moreover, we not only confirm that Lithuanians preserve one of the highest proportions of western, Scandinavian and eastern hunter-gather ancestry components found in European populations but also that of an steppe Early to Middle Bronze Age pastoralists, which together configure the genetic distinctiveness of the Lithuanian population. Finally, among the top signatures of positive selection detected in Lithuanians, we identified several candidate genes related with diet (PNLIP, PPARD), pigmentation (SLC24A5, TYRP1 and PPARD) and the immune response (BRD2, HLA-DOA, IL26 and IL22).application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2019. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45746-3Population geneticsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess