Outlining the Ancestry Landscape of Colombian Admixed Populations

Abstract

The ancestry of the Colombian population comprises a large number of well differentiated Native communities belonging to diverse linguistic groups. In the late fifteenth century, a process of admixture was initiated with the arrival of the Europeans, and several years later, Africans also became part of the Colombian population. Therefore, the genepool of the current Colombian population results from the admixture of Native Americans, Europeans and Africans. This admixture occurred differently in each region of the country, producing a clearly stratified population. Considering the importance of population substructure in both clinical and forensic genetics, we sought to investigate and compare patterns of genetic ancestry in Colombia by studying samples from Native and non-Native populations living in its 5 continental regions: the Andes, Caribe, Amazonia, Orinoquía, and Pacific regions. For this purpose, 46 AIM-Indels were genotyped in 761 non-related individuals from current populations. Previously published genotype data from 214 Colombian Natives from five communities were used for population comparisons. Significant differences were observed between Native and non-Native populations, among non-Native populations from different regions and among Native populations from different ethnic groups. The Pacific was the region with the highest African ancestry, Amazonia harboured the highest Native ancestry and the Andean and Orinoquían regions showed the highest proportion of European ancestry. The Andean region was further sub-divided into 6 sub-regions: North East, Central West, Central East, West, South West and South East. Among these regions, the South West region showed a significantly lower European admixture than the other regions. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and variance values of ancestry among individuals within populations showed a potential stratification of the Pacific population.

Genetic admixture patterns in Argentinian Patagonia

“…Using data from the 46 AIM-Indels, pairwise F ST genetic distances were calculated between the five Patagonian populations from this study, and samples from six Argentinian provinces [15], six South American populations from Brazil [23], Bolivia [24] and Colombia [25,26], as well as the European, African and Native American HGDP-CEPH reference populations [22] (S5 Table).…”

“…Dye-labeled amplified fragments were separated and detected using an ABI3130 Genetic Analyzer (Life Technologies), and automated allele calls were obtained with GeneMapper v.3.2 (Life Technologies). This panel showed to be highly informative to analyze genetic admixture in different Latin-American populations, including Argentina [15], Brazil [23], Bolivia [24] and Colombia [25,26].…”

“…Allele frequency estimations, Hardy-Weinberg exact tests, and population differentiation tests were performed using the Arlequin software v.3.5.2 [27]. Population genetic analyses were carried out comparing our five populations with others six Argentinian populations [15] and six South American populations from Brazil [23], Bolivia [24] and Colombia [25,26]. Genetic distances ( F ST ) between populations across 46 AIM-Indel markers were visualized in a multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) plot performed with the R v3.1.1 FactoMineR [28] statistical package.…”

Variations in cag pathogenicity island genes of Helicobacter pylori from Latin American groups may influence neoplastic progression to gastric cancer

“…Study population. Strains analyzed in this study were isolated from patients recruited in the context of a multi-centric study based in Latin America 50,51 . Sequences used in the present work are largely overlapping with those reported in a phylogenetic analysis on Latin American HP strains 29 .…”

Association of Paraoxonase-1 Q192R (rs662) Single Nucleotide Variation with Cardiovascular Risk in Coffee Harvesters of Central Colombia

“…Geographically, the Coffee Belt region is in the Cordillera Central of the Colombian Andes. The ancestry analysis of this region has identified a high European and Native American genetic contribution and a low value of African ancestry [36]. The population of our study self-reportedly identified as mestizo and white individuals and a minority of Afro-descendant ethnic origin.…”