Analysis of mitochondrial genomes of modern and ancient population of Northern Eurasia: probabilities of random match of haplotypes

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphism is widely used in interdisciplinary paleogenetic or archaeogenetic studies and allows studying the genetic continuity of modern and ancient populations. In this work, we performed a comparative analysis of the values of the random match probabilities of haplotypes for whole mitochondrial genomes and hypervariable regions (HVS1, HVS2, HVS1 + HVS2 and the entire control region) in Eurasian populations. Published data (GenBank and the 1000 Genomes project), as well as the results of the Russian Federation population study (N = 233 individuals representing various ethnic groups) were analyzed. The results of the analysis are presented for 34 populations of the rank of ethnic groups, as well as for the combined regional samples (Europe, Siberia, East Asia, Central Asia, Caucasus, West Asia). A total of 7011 mitogenomes were analyzed. The study has shown that the random match probabilities of mtDNA haplotypes in the case of analysis of whole mitogenomes is much higher than those obtained for mtDNA hypervariable regions only. Thus, the analysis of full-length mitochondrial genome sequences is necessary for the correct interpretation of the results of genetic identifications in the field of archaeogenetics.