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Although Slavic populations account for over 4.5% of world inhabitants, no centralised, open-source reference database of genetic variation of any Slavic population exists to date. Such data are crucial for clinical genetics, biomedical research, as well as archeological and historical studies. The Polish population, which is homogenous and sedentary in its nature but influenced by many migrations of the past, is unique and could serve as a genetic reference for the Slavic nations. In this study, we analysed whole genomes of 1222 Poles to identify and genotype a wide spectrum of genomic variation, such as small and structural variants, runs of homozygosity, mitochondrial haplogroups, and de novo variants. Common variant analyses showed that the Polish cohort is highly homogenous and shares ancestry with other European populations. In rare variant analyses, we identified 32 autosomal-recessive genes with significantly different frequencies of pathogenic alleles in the Polish population as compared to the non-Finish Europeans, including C2, TGM5, NUP93, C19orf12, and PROP1. The allele frequencies for small and structural variants, calculated for 1076 unrelated individuals, are released publicly as The Thousand Polish Genomes database, and will contribute to the worldwide genomic resources available to researchers and clinicians.

Although Slavic populations account for over 3.5% of world inhabitants, no centralized, open source reference database of genetic variation of any Slavic population exists to date. Such data are crucial for either biomedical research and genetic counseling and are essential for archeological and historical studies. Polish population, homogenous and sedentary in its nature but influenced by many migrations of the past, is unique and could serve as a good genetic reference for middle European Slavic nations.The aim of the present study was to describe first results of analyses of a newly created national database of Polish genomic variant allele frequencies. Never before has any study on the whole genomes of Polish population been conducted on such a large number of individuals (1,079).A wide spectrum of genomic variation was identified and genotyped, such as small and structural variants, runs of homozygosity, mitochondrial haplogroups and Mendelian inconsistencies. The allele frequencies were calculated for 943 unrelated individuals and released publicly as The Thousand Polish Genomes database. A precise detection and characterisation of rare variants enriched in the Polish population allowed to confirm the allele frequencies for known pathogenic variants in diseases, such as Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS) or Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS). Additionally, the analysis of OMIM AR genes led to the identification of 22 genes with significantly different cumulative allele frequencies in the Polish (POL) vs European NFE population. We hope that The Thousand Polish Genomes database will contribute to the worldwide genomic data resources for researchers and clinicians.