PATAGONIAN NATIVE AMERICAN GROUPS: GENETIC CHARACTERIZATION

SALA A; SACOMMANO L; CORACH D

Viena

Congreso; 24th World Congress of the ISFG; 2011

ISFG

Aiming to investigate the genetic features of two potentially related Patagonian aboriginalgroups: Mapuche (N=75) and Tehuelche (N=28), 17 Y-STRs as well as one Y-SNP (M3-Q1a3a) and the entire mitochondrial Control region (16024-540) were analyzed.The results obtained demonstrate that 100% of the individuals analyzed belonged to one ofthe Native-American specific mitochondrial haplogroup (hg). HgA2 was absent in Tehuelchegroup meanwhile hgD1 was the most frequent (53%). In Mapuche the four Native Americanhgs were observed: hgA2 (8%), hgB2 (36%), hgC1 (27%) and hgD1 (29%). More than 80%of the individuals belonged to Q1a3a haplogroup. The minimal haplotype corresponding tothe most frequent haplotype in Mapuche was observed in one sample out of 89804haplotypes included within YHRD (real. 35). The most frequent minimal Y haplotypeobserved in Tehuelche was not detected in Mapuche individuals. The mitochondrialnucleotide diversity observed was 0.0124 and 0.011, and the Y-chromosome haplotypeaverage gene diversity was 0.57 and 0.593, in Mapuche and Tehuelche, respectivelyMitochondrial and Y-chromosome genetic distances between both groups were nonsignificant, according to the history of both ethnicities.Related aboriginal groups from Chile previously investigated by means of mtDNAsequencing, such us Pehuenche, Mapuche and Yaghan were compared with our data.Significant differences were observed between the Argentinean groups respect to Yaghan,and between Mapuche fron Argentina respects to Mapuche from Chile.This work provides additional genetic information of two out of the three southernArgentinean aboriginal ethnicities.