Dissecting Continental and Intra-European Genetic Structure Using Chromosome 22 SNPs from The 1000 Genomes Project

Understanding the population structure of global human groups remains fundamental to population genetics and medical genomics.In this study, I analyzed genomic variation from Chromosome 22 using publicly available data from the 1000 Genomes Project, focusing on four populations: Yoruba (YRI), Iberian (IBS), Tuscan (TSI), and Utah residents of Northern/Western European ancestry (CEU).Using ~50,000 high-quality biallelic SNPs, I applied principal component analysis (PCA), ADMIXTURE, pairwise FST, multidimensional scaling (MDS), and phylogenetic clustering to characterize inter-population relationships.PCA revealed a strong continental split between African and European individuals, with minimal separation among the European subgroups.ADMIX-TURE analysis (K = 4) confirmed this pattern, showing consistent European ancestry clusters and distinct divergence from African ancestry.Pairwise FST values highlighted low differentiation among the European groups (FST 0.0016-0.0030)and a much higher divergence from the YRI population (FST > 0.137).The site frequency spectrum was dominated by rare variants, in line with recent population expansions.This study demonstrates that even a single chromosome's SNP subset can robustly capture major axes of genetic structure, offering a scalable model for population genomics education and exploratory research.