Mendizabal et al. (2008)

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Mendizabal et al. (2008)

"Genetic origin, admixture, and asymmetry in maternal and paternal human lineages in Cuba"

BMC Evol Biol. 8: 213, doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-213 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2492877

Received May 16, 2008; Accepted July 21, 2008. Published online 2008 July 21.

Authors

Isabel Mendizabal,1 Karla Sandoval,1 Gemma Berniell-Lee,1 Francesc Calafell,1,4 Antonio Salas,2 Antonio Martínez-Fuentes,3 and David Comascorresponding author1,4

1Unitat de Biologia Evolutiva, Departament de Ciències Experimentals i de la Salut, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain 2Unidade de Xenética, Instituto de Medicina Legal, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, and Grupo de Medicina Xenómica, Hospital Clínico Universitario, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain 3Departamento de Biología Animal y Humana. Facultad de Biología, Universidad de la Habana, Ciudad de la Habana, Cuba 4CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain corresponding authorCorresponding author. Isabel Mendizabal: isabel.mendizabal@upf.edu; Karla Sandoval: karla.sandoval@upf.edu; Gemma Berniell-Lee: gemma.berniell@upf.edu; Francesc Calafell: francesc.calafell@upf.edu; Antonio Salas: apimlase@usc.es; Antonio Martínez-Fuentes: ajmf@fbio.uh.cu; David Comas: david.comas@upf.edu

Abstract

Background

Before the arrival of Europeans to Cuba, the island was inhabited by two Native American groups, the Tainos and the Ciboneys. Most of the present archaeological, linguistic and ancient DNA evidence indicates a South American origin for these populations. In colonial times, Cuban Native American people were replaced by European settlers and slaves from Africa. It is still unknown however, to what extent their genetic pool intermingled with and was 'diluted' by the arrival of newcomers. In order to investigate the demographic processes that gave rise to the current Cuban population, we analyzed the hypervariable region I (HVS-I) and five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) coding region in 245 individuals, and 40 Y-chromosome SNPs in 132 male individuals.

Results

The Native American contribution to present-day Cubans accounted for 33% of the maternal lineages, whereas Africa and Eurasia contributed 45% and 22% of the lineages, respectively. This Native American substrate in Cuba cannot be traced back to a single origin within the American continent, as previously suggested by ancient DNA analyses. Strikingly, no Native American lineages were found for the Y-chromosome, for which the Eurasian and African contributions were around 80% and 20%, respectively.

Conclusion

While the ancestral Native American substrate is still appreciable in the maternal lineages, the extensive process of population admixture in Cuba has left no trace of the paternal Native American lineages, mirroring the strong sexual bias in the admixture processes taking place during colonial times.

Data

From Table 1. Y-chromosome haplogroup frequencies found in Cuba (132 individuals) grouped according to their phylogeographic origin.

African	Cuban	West	Cuban	East	Cuban
haplogroups	individuals	Eurasian	individuals	Asian	individuals
		haplogroups		haplogroups
E1	1 (0.8%)	E3b	2 (1.5%)	N/O	1 (0.8%)
E2	2 (1.5%)	E3b1	6 (4.5%)	O2	1 (0.8%)
E3a	13 (9.8%)	G	8 (6.1%)
E3b2	8 (6.1%)	I	11 (8.3%)
E3b3	2 (1.5%)	J2	6 (6.1%)
		K2	2 (1.5%)
		R1 (xR1a)	67 (50.8%)
		R1a	2 (1.5%)
TOTAL	26 (19.7%)	TOTAL	104 (78.8%)	TOTAL	2 (1.5%)