Mitochondrial sequence variation in ancient horses from the Carpathian Basin and possible modern relatives.

Movements of human populations leave their traces in the genetic makeup of the areas affected; the same applies to the horses that move with their owners This study is concerned with the mitochondrial control region genotypes of 31 archaeological horse remains, excavated from pre-conquest Avar and post-conquest Hungarian burial sites in the Carpathian Basin dating from the sixth to the tenth century. To investigate relationships to other ancient and recent breeds, modern Hucul and Akhal Teke samples were also collected, and mtDNA control region (CR) sequences from 76 breeds representing 921 individual specimens were combined with our sequence data. Phylogenetic relationships among horse mtDNA CR haplotypes were estimated using both genetic distance and the non-dichotomous network method. Both methods indicated a separation between horses of the Avars and the Hungarians. Our results show that the ethnic changes induced by the Hungarian Conquest were accompanied by a corresponding change in the stables of the Carpathian Basin.

Prevalence of adult-type hypolactasia as diagnosed with genetic and lactose hydrogen breath tests in Hungarians.

The prevalence of adult-type hypolactasia varies ethnically and geographically among populations. A C/T(-13910) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), upstream of the lactase gene, is known to be associated with lactase non-persistence. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of lactase-persistent and non-persistent genotypes in the Hungarian population, the age at onset and the applicability of the lactose H2 breath test in comparison with genetic screening. The prevalence of the C/C(-13910) genotype among adults was 37%. Hypolactasia starts to appear at around 5 years of age. Over the age of 12 years, almost all of those with a C/C(-13910) genotype have lactase non-persistence. The C/C(-13910) genotype was closely associated with a positive lactose H2 breath test in symptomatic children, whereas the lactase-persistent genotypes correlated better with a negative H2 test in a control group. In conclusion, supplementary non-invasive breath and genotyping tests furnish a perfect clinical diagnosis.

Y-chromosome analysis of ancient Hungarian and two modern Hungarian-speaking populations from the Carpathian Basin.

The Hungarian population belongs linguistically to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic family. The Tat C allele is an interesting marker in the Finno-Ugric context, distributed in all the Finno-Ugric-speaking populations, except for Hungarians. This question arises whether the ancestral Hungarians, who settled in the Carpathian Basin, harbored this polymorphism or not. 100 men from modern Hungary, 97 Szeklers (a Hungarian-speaking population from Transylvania), and 4 archaeologically Hungarian bone samples from the 10(th) century were studied for this polymorphism. Among the modern individuals, only one Szekler carries the Tat C allele, whereas out of the four skeletal remains, two possess the allele. The latter finding, even allowing for the low sample number, appears to indicate a Siberian lineage of the invading Hungarians, which later has largely disappeared. The two modern Hungarian-speaking populations, based on 22 Y-chromosomal binary markers, share similar components described for other Europeans, except for the presence of the haplogroup P*(xM173) in Szekler samples, which may reflect a Central Asian connection, and high frequency of haplogroup J in both Szeklers and Hungarians. MDS analysis based on haplogroup frequency values, confirms that modern Hungarian and Szekler populations are genetically closely related, and similar to populations from Central Europe and the Balkans.