The Genomic Similarities with Linguistic Difference: A Study Among the Oraon and Munda Tribes of the Ranchi District, Jharkhand, India

Abstract

The present study was conducted on two tribal communities, the Oraon and Munda, inhabiting the Ranchi district of Jharkhand state, India. The study was designed to elucidate genetic similarity, if any, shared between these tribes as they belong to the common Proto-Australoid stock but bear different linguistic affiliations. For this, a total of 98 intravenous blood samples (48 Oraon and 50 Munda) were collected from unrelated individuals of either sex up to first cousins, with their prior informed written consent. The DNA was extracted and studied for a total of 20 autosomal markers, including 7 Alu Indels, 3 DRD2 TaqI sites, 3 β-globin sites, and 7 restriction site polymorphisms. All the 20 studied molecular markers were found to be polymorphic in both the tribal population groups and showed similarities with respect to allele frequencies, with a low coefficient of gene differentiation (G(ST)) value. Moreover, sharing and distribution patterns of haplotypes of the β-globin gene cluster suggest that the Oraon and Munda share a common ancestry. However, small differences between them with reference to the linkage disequilibrium (LD) pattern indicate that the Munda might have emerged as a result of admixture between Proto-Australoids and Austro-Asiatic-speaking Mongoloids as supported by the principal co-ordinate analysis, wherein the Munda are closely placed with the Dravidian-speaking Proto-Australoid tribes of India. A common genetic substratum (Proto-Australoid stock) of the Oraon and Munda was evident in the present study, although these tribes are distinct linguistically.