Maternal and paternal lineages in Albania and the genetic structure of Indo-European populations.
Mitochondrial DNA HV1 sequences and Y chromosome haplotypes (DYS19 STR and YAP) were characterised in an Albanian sample and compared with those of several other Indo-European populations from the European continent. No significant difference was observed between Albanians and most other Europeans, despite the fact that Albanians are clearly different from all other Indo-Europeans linguistically. We observe a general lack of genetic structure among Indo-European populations for both maternal and paternal polymorphisms, as well as low levels of correlation between linguistics and genetics, even though slightly more significant for the Y chromosome than for mtDNA. Altogether, our results show that the linguistic structure of continental Indo-European populations is not reflected in the variability of the mitochondrial and Y chromosome markers. This discrepancy could be due to very recent differentiation of Indo-European populations in Europe and/or substantial amounts of gene flow among these populations.
Belledi
M
M
Dipartimento di Biologia Evolutiva e Funzionale, Università di Parma, Italy. belledi@irisbioc.bio.unipr.it
Poloni
E S
ES
Casalotti
R
R
Conterio
F
F
Mikerezi
I
I
Tagliavini
J
J
Excoffier
L
L
D000415:Albania / Q000453:epidemiology; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005787:Gene Frequency; D005819:Genetic Markers; D005828:Genetics, Population; D018392:Genomic Imprinting / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*; D014998:Y Chromosome / Q000235:genetics*
D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D005819:Genetic Markers