title: Taiwanese aborigines: genetic heterogeneity and paternal contribution to Oceania.
abstract: In the present study, for the first time, 293 Taiwanese aboriginal males from all nine major tribes (Ami, Atayal, Bunun, Rukai, Paiwan, Saisat, Puyuma, Tsou, Yami) were genotyped with 17 YSTR loci in a attend to reveal migrational patterns connected with the Austronesian expansion. We investigate the paternal genetic relationships of these Taiwanese aborigines to 42 Asia-Pacific reference populations, geographically selected to reflect various locations within the Austronesian domain. The Tsou and Puyuma tribes exhibit the lowest (0.1851) and the highest (0.5453) average total genetic diversity, respectively. Further, the fraction of unique haplotypes is also relatively high in the Puyuma (86.7%) and low in Tsou (33.3%) suggesting different demographic histories. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed several notable findings: 1) the Taiwan indigenous populations are highly diverse. In fact, the level of inter-population heterogeneity displayed by the Taiwanese aboriginal populations is close to that exhibited among all 51 Asia-Pacific populations examined; 2) the asymmetrical contribution of the Taiwanese aborigines to the Oceanic groups. Ami, Bunun and Saisiyat tribes exhibit the strongest paternal links to the Solomon and Polynesian island communities, whereas most of the remaining Taiwanese aboriginal groups are more genetically distant to these Oceanic inhabitants; 3) the present YSTR analyses does not reveal a strong paternal affinity of the nine Taiwanese tribes to their continental Asian neighbors. Overall, our current findings suggest that, perhaps, only a few of the tribes were involved in the migration out of Taiwan.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, China.
authors.forename: Zhaoshu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: Foundation for Applied Molecular Science (FfAME), Gainesville, FL 32601, USA.
authors.forename: Diane J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Rowold
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, USA. Electronic address: RBertrand@coloradocollege.edu.
authors.forename: Ralph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Garcia-Bertrand
authors.affiliation: Department of Dentistry, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Calderon
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Regueiro
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Zhengzhou Central Hospital, Zhengzhou University, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, China.
authors.forename: Mingxia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: Rene J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Herrera
mesh_terms: D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D005787:Gene Frequency; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D044349:Oceania; D013624:Taiwan / Q000208:ethnology
keywords: Austronesian; STR; Taiwan aborigine; Y chromosome