RETRACTED ARTICLE: Differentiation analysis for estimating individual ancestry from the Tibetan Plateau by an archaic altitude adaptation EPAS1 haplotype among East Asian populations

Tibetans have adapted to the extreme environment of high altitude for hundreds of generations. A highly differentiated 5-SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) haplotype motif (AGGAA) on a hypoxic pathway gene, EPAS1, is observed in Tibetans and lowlanders. To evaluate the potential usage of the 5-SNP haplotype in ancestry inference for Tibetan or Tibetan-related populations, we analyzed this haplotype in 1053 individuals of 12 Chinese populations residing on the Tibetan Plateau, peripheral regions of Tibet, and plain regions. These data were integrated with the genotypes from the 1000 Genome populations and populations in a previously reported paper for population structure analyses. We found that populations representing highland and lowland groups have different dominant ancestry components. The core Denisovan haplotype (AGGAA) was observed at a frequency of 72.32% in the Tibetan Plateau, with a frequency range from 9.48 to 21.05% in the peripheral regions and