Larger mitochondrial DNA than Y-chromosome differences between matrilocal and pa

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Larger mitochondrial DNA than Y-chromosome differences between matrilocal and patrilocal groups from Sumatra // Nature Communications 2, Article number: 228 doi:10.1038/ncomms1235 Received 12 July 2010 Accepted 09 February 2011 Published 08 March 2011

Gunnarsdóttir et al.

Genetic differences between human populations are typically larger for the Y-chromosome than for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which has been attributed to the ubiquity of patrilocality across human cultures. However, this claim has been disputed, and previous analyses of matrilocal groups give conflicting results. Here we analyse mtDNA variation (complete mtDNA genome sequences via next-generation sequencing) and non-recombining regions of the Y-chromosome variation (Y-single-nucleotide-polymorphisms and Y-short-tandem-repeats (STR)) in a matrilocal group (the Semende) and a patrilocal group (the Besemah) from Sumatra. We find in the Semende significantly lower mtDNA diversity than in the Besemah as expected for matrilocal groups, but unexpectedly we find no difference in Y-chromosome diversity between the groups. We highlight the importance of using complete mtDNA sequences for such analyses, as using only partial sequences (as done in previous studies) can give misleading results.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n3/full/ncomms1235.html