Maternal and paternal lineages in Albania and the genetic structure of Indo-European populations

Abstract

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.

X-chromosome SNP analyses in 11 human Mediterranean populations show a high overall genetic homogeneity except in North-west Africans (Moroccans)

“…Only very little genetic structure has been found among populations living on the northern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea by analyses of Y-chromosome STRs [3] and mtDNA [7]. The pattern may be a consequence of the Neolithic demic diffusion in this region (around 9,000 YBP) and/or a high level of gene flow in the area.…”

Tracing European Founder Lineages in the Near Eastern mtDNA Pool

“…The European populations were analyzed by a modified version of the paleo-climatological model of Gamble (1986Gamble ( , 1999, as described elsewhere (Richards et al 1998a): southeastern Europe-141 Bulgarians, including 30 from the study by Calafell et al (1996), and 92 Romanians from Maramureş (65) and Vrancea (27); eastern Mediterranean-65 Greeks from Thessaloniki, 60 Sarakatsani from northern Greece, and 42 Albanians (Belledi et al 2000); central Mediterranean-49 Italians from Tuscany Torroni et al 1998) and 48 from Rome, 90 Sicilians (42 from Troina and 48 from Trapani), and 115 Sardinians, including 69 from the study by Di Rienzo and Wilson (1991); western Mediterranean-54 Portuguese (Cô rte-Real et al 1996), 71 Spaniards (Cô rte-Real et al 1996, 92 Galicians (Salas et al 1998) (156 Basques from northern Spain, including those from the studies by Bertranpetit et al [1995] and Cô rte-Real et al [1996], were treated separately); Alps-70 Swiss (Pult et al 1994), 49 South Germans from Bavaria , and 99 Austrians (Parson et al 1998); north-central Europe-37 Poles, 83 Czechs, 174 Germans Hofmann et al 1997), and 38 Danes, including 33 from the study by Richards et al (1996); Scandinavia-32 Swedes (Sajantila et al 1996), 231 Norwegians, including 215 from the study by Opdal et al (1998), and 53 Icelanders (Sajantila et al 1995;Richards et al 1996); northwestern Europe-71 French, comprising 47 from northeastern France and 24 from the CEPH database, 100 British (Piercy et al 1993), 92 individuals from Cornwall, including 69 from the study by Richards et al (1996), 92 individuals from Wales , and 101 individuals from western Ireland; northeastern Europe-25 Russians from the northern Caucasus, 36 Chuvash from Chuvashia (Russia), 163 Finns and Karelians, including 133 from the study by Sajantila et al (1995) and 29 from the study by Richards et al (1996), 149 Estonians, including 28 from the study by Sajantila et al (1995) and 20 from the study by Sajantila et al (1996), and 34 Volga-Finns (Sajantila et al 1995)…”

Paternal and maternal lineages in the Balkans show a homogeneous landscape over linguistic barriers, except for the isolated Aromuns

“…Several genetic studies have provided a large amount of data on the Balkan populations, not only based on classical markers (Cavalli-Sforza et al 1994) but also on autosomal STRs (Huckenbeck et al 2001), Alu insertion polymorphisms (Comas et al 2004), mitochondrial DNA (Calafell et al 1996;Belledi et al 2000;Richards et al 2000;Malyarchuk et al 2003) and the Y chromosome (Caglia et al 1998;Rosser et al 2000;Semino et al 2000;Parreira et al 2002;Di Giacomo et al 2003;Robino et al 2004). Most of these studies have focused on the impact of different human expansions in Europe, basically comparing the Paleolithic versus the Neolithic genetic contributions (Chikhi et al 1998;Rosser et al 2000;, and/or looking at the existence of genetic structure in the extant populations of the continent (Comas et al 1997;Simoni et al 2000).…”