The molecular dissection of mtDNA haplogroup H confirms that the Franco-Cantabrian glacial refuge was a major source for the European gene pool.
Complete sequencing of 62 mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) belonging (or very closely related) to haplogroup H revealed that this mtDNA haplogroup--by far the most common in Europe--is subdivided into numerous subhaplogroups, with at least 15 of them (H1-H15) identifiable by characteristic mutations. All the haplogroup H mtDNAs found in 5,743 subjects from 43 populations were then screened for diagnostic markers of subhaplogroups H1 and H3. This survey showed that both subhaplogroups display frequency peaks, centered in Iberia and surrounding areas, with distributions declining toward the northeast and southeast--a pattern extremely similar to that previously reported for mtDNA haplogroup V. Furthermore, the coalescence ages of H1 and H3 (~11,000 years) are close to that previously reported for V. These findings have major implications for the origin of Europeans, since they attest that the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area was indeed the source of late-glacial expansions of hunter-gatherers that repopulated much of Central and Northern Europe from ~15,000 years ago. This has also some implications for disease studies. For instance, the high occurrence of H1 and H3 in Iberia led us to re-evaluate the haplogroup distribution in 50 Spanish families affected by nonsyndromic sensorineural deafness due to the A1555G mutation. The survey revealed that the previously reported excess of H among these families is caused entirely by H3 and is due to a major, probably nonrecent, founder event.
Achilli
Alessandro
A
Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
Rengo
Chiara
C
Magri
Chiara
C
Battaglia
Vincenza
V
Olivieri
Anna
A
Scozzari
Rosaria
R
Cruciani
Fulvio
F
Zeviani
Massimo
M
Briem
Egill
E
Carelli
Valerio
V
Moral
Pedro
P
Dugoujon
Jean-Michel
JM
Roostalu
Urmas
U
Loogväli
Eva-Liis
EL
Kivisild
Toomas
T
Bandelt
Hans-Jürgen
HJ
Richards
Martin
M
Villems
Richard
R
Santachiara-Benerecetti
A Silvana
AS
Semino
Ornella
O
Torroni
Antonio
A
D001483:Base Sequence; D002980:Climate; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D018703:Founder Effect; D005602:France; D005788:Gene Pool; D005819:Genetic Markers / Q000235:genetics; D006239:Haplotypes / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013030:Spain; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*
D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D005819:Genetic Markers