Super Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype: AMC, What Do Mutations Mean?

[GregKiroKH]

Various Internet sites claim that DSY390 = 25 is more Irish and DSY390 = 23 is more Germanic. My first 25 markers are clearly AMC. My results compared with the Super Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype showed 28% had the DSY390*24 to 23 mutation like me and 20% had the DSY385b*14 to 15 change as of late 2005. However, the newer markers 26-37 showed more mutations. I had six mutations out of eleven. I do not know what these results mean, 18% had the DSY460*11 to 10 mutation, 1% had the DSY456*16 to 18 mutation, 15% had the DSY607*15 to 16 mutation, 30% had the DSY576*18 to 17 mutation, 2% had the DSYCDYa*37 to 39 mutation, and 15% had the DSYCDYb*38 to 40 mutation. As a matter of fact, I cannot determine my subclade haplotype until better tests are made from what I read. Does anyone know what the mutations in the SWAMH mean?

[ChrisS]

Greg (I assume),
The mutations, in and of themselves, don't *mean* anything other than the fact they have occured. (stay with me here, I'm not trying to be patronizing <grin>)
The terminolgies of the AMC (Atlantic Modal Haplotype) WAMC (Western .. ete) and SWAMC (SuperWestern..etc) are classifications that anthropologically interested folx are attempting to use to further classify their estimates of the flow of humankind.

The HAPLOGROUP is *defined* by SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) testing.
There are some very perciptive and talented people out there trying to estimate the haplogroup .. based on HAPLOTYPE (your 12,25, 37 marker profiles) .. some are more perceptive than others but all I've seen are reasonable.
The only way to ablsolutely confirm your "deep ancestry" is thruogh HAPLOGROUP SNP test knowedge.

Bear in mind thru all this confusion that this is a very NEW science and the facts of taday are likely to be modified if not totally changed over the next few years and longer .. but at least these guys are doing their level best to give us some sort of framework on which to build.

Do take what I say with the appropriate "grain of salt" 4 years ago I was lost in this wilderness (my kit# of 2841 gives an ideas of when I started on Y-DNA learning curves).

Good luck to ya,
Chris S

[GregKiroKH]

Various Internet sites claim that DSY390 = 25 is more Irish and DSY390 = 23 is more Germanic. My first 25 markers are clearly AMC. My results compared with the Super Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype showed 28% had the DSY390*24 to 23 mutation like me and 20% had the DSY385b*14 to 15 change as of late 2005. However, the newer markers 26-37 showed more mutations. I had six mutations out of twelve. I do not know what these results mean, 18% had the DSY460*11 to 10 mutation, 1% had the DSY456*16 to 18 mutation, 15% had the DSY607*15 to 16 mutation, 30% had the DSY576*18 to 17 mutation, 2% had the DSYCDYa*37 to 39 mutation, and 15% had the DSYCDYb*38 to 40 mutation. As a matter of fact, I cannot determine my subclade haplotype until better tests are made from what I read. Does anyone know what the mutations in the SWAMH mean?

Opps, there are twelve markers from 26 to 37? I guess no one can edit after a post is made.

Thanks Chris,

I always liked Genetics I. Nonetheless; this is all new to me.

[GregKiroKH]

Found another error:
It is DYS not DSY

DYS: Stands for D = DNA, Y = Y-chromosome, S = segment (segment in y-DNA testing means Short Tandem Repeat). A marker on chromosome 1 would be D1Snnn. Markers which are found on both the X and Y chromosome are DXYSnnn. The numbers after the DYS are arbitrary numbers, assigned in the order that they were discovered. From Ann Turner: "A marker on chromosome 1 would be D1Snnn. Markers which are found on both the X and Y chromosome are DXYSnnn. The numbers after the DYS are arbitrary numbers, assigned in the order that they were discovered." The DYS numbering scheme (e.g. DYS388, DYS390) for the Y-STR haplotype loci is controlled and administered by an international standards body called HUGO Human Gene Nomenclature Committee based at University College, London.

[ChrisS]

My apologies Greg, I totally blew it on that one <sigh> .. simply didn't realize you were actually asking for what you asked for..i.e "what do they mean?"
Recently it appeared that they are distorting even those definitions. Some of the new markers at Biotix(Ithink) in Germany are being lablled as DYFxxx and are the same type of marker (short tandem repeat) as the older STRs .. now I suppose the "DY" portion is gonna have to satisfy us, eh?
It was hard enough to learn the nomenclature of organic chemistry back in the '60s .. thank goodness I didn't have to face the classfications of biology back then.. but it appears now I might not be able to escape.
Genetics has always fascinated me, too .. and like a total nerd, I used to wander thru the biology building at U of H just to see what the grad students were up to .. got really interesting a couple of times..heheh.
Chris

[GregKiroKH]

Christmas time gives me some time to cram, Chris. Luckily, I am a biochemist, and I can translate the information to make my family happy. I decided to get some fundamental books:

"Genes, Peoples, and Languages"
"The History and Geography of Human Genes : (Abridged paperback edition)"

Professor Skyes' books appealed to me. Still, I passed on them because of reviews. I hope I picked the best two to review.

There are many articles on the DYS390 mutation. It is funny that I have no WAMH mutations in the medium marker set 13-25. They are said to have faster mutation rates than 1-12. Yet the slower mutation DYS390*24 –– > 23 is different from the faster mutation DYS385b*15 –– > 14 while genetic marker DYS464 is a faster mutating marker, and marker DYS458 is a slower mutating marker of the medium markers. It is just normal that some DYS genetic markers within 26-37 changed since I am in a different region of the world now. The articles about these faster moving newer genetic markers are harder to find. These must have some geographical and historical link.

[GregKiroKH]

Update on Mutations

From generation to generation marker sequences, or haplotypes, are the same. Rarely, a marker will change (mutate), and increase by one, an addition, or decrease by one, a deletion. These are called 1-step mutations. According to Dr. Hammer at the University of Arizona: FTDNA's "panels" of markers (1:12), (13:25), (26:37) were assessed at rates of .00399, .00481, .00748, respectively. The average for all 37 was .0058. Suppose a rate of Mutation = .002: This assumes that any given marker has a .002 chance of mutating with each generation. In other words, we could expect any marker to mutate once in 500 generations. The rate of .002 is considered conservative and this is the average of a number of studies. E.G., John Chandler of Columbia University has computed an average of .0023, using a large database comprising many surname studies. Calculations of TMRCA are complex and depend on the mutation rate and the true number of mutations. (E.G., how do we know that DYS393 = 23, didn't go to 24 and subsequently back down to 23 in a 500 year period? Research shows this case to be much less likely than an increase. Currently we make some simplifying assumptions. For more detail, see the TMRCA material by Bruce Walsh at the University of Arizona.
http://www.humphreygenealogy.com/DTDNA1.html (edited by GregKiroKH)