Diversity and genetic structure analysis of three Amazonian Amerindian populations from Colombia

Abstract

Introduction: In the departments of the Vaupés and Guaviare, in southeastern Colombia, in a transitional area between Amazonia and the eastern plains, inhabit indigenous groups belonging to the Tukanoan (East) and Guahiban linguistic families. Although some studies have dealt with the culture and the cosmology description of these groups, little research has been done on the biological diversity and genetic relationships of such groups. Objective: To estimate the diversity, the structure, and the genetic relationships of one Guahiban and two Tukanoan groups of the Colombian Amazonian region. Methods: Samples were collected (n = 106) from unrelated individuals belonging to the Vaupés native indigenous commu­nities. The DNA was extracted and nine autosomal microsatellites were typed. Several measures of diversity, FST, pairwise FST, and population differentiation between groups were calculated. Finally, it was estimated the genetic distances of the groups studied in relation with other Amazonian, Andean and Central American indigenous people. Results: 1. The genetic diversity found stands within the range of other Amazonian populations, whereas compared to the mestizo and afro-descendant Colombian populations, such diversity showed to be lower. 2. The structure and population differentiation tests showed two clusters; one consisting of the Vaupés Tukanoan and Guaviare Tukanoan groups, and a second one formed by the Guayabero. 3. Tukanoan groups are found to be closer related to the Brazilian Amazonian po­pulations than to the Guayabero. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the Guayabero group from Guaviare, are genetically differentiated from those Tukanoan groups of the Vaupés and Guaviare

Identifying new lineages in the Y chromosome of Colombian Amazon indigenous populations

“…By this time, both populations probably had some of the mutations reported here as the oldest mutations; this would suggest a common origin of all ethnic groups, with subsequent linguistic and biological expansion and divergence. This possibility is supported by the relative isolation of the Colombian Amazon from the rest of the country and the difficultly of access, sometimes without any means of terrestrial communication (Braga et al, ).…”

“…In relation to the Colombian Amazon, previous studies have evaluated autosomal, mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome markers, finding low structure between communities of the Eastern Tucanoan linguistic family (ET) with respect to the first two markers but a high structure for the Y chromosome, and high structure in all three markers between the Kakua and ET communities was found (Arias, ; Braga, ; Braga, Arias, & Barreto, ). However, like most studies in indigenous communities, the lineages corresponded to haplogroup Q‐M3, with a few belonging to Q‐M242(xQ‐M3), and no subhaplogroups were derived from Q‐M3 (Braga, ).…”

New Y-SNPs in QM3 indigenous populations of Colombia

“…Based on these two divisions, for the Amazonian populations it is expected that the linguistic component will have a greater weight on their population structure and diversity, since in this area marriages are performed between speakers of different indigenous languages (linguistic exogamy). This increases genetic diversity through a particular genetic flow (asymmetric) in which women are the ones who migrate and men remain settled in their territories [14], which in turn directly affects population structuring.…”

“…Its settlement has been the subject of extensive debate at the level of evolutionary studies for more than 100 years [1][2][3][4]. A large number of genetic-population studies have been carried out on Amerindians, revealing some aspects of evolution and the various migrations that have taken place throughout history and prehistory [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. However, questions related to the time of arrival, number of migrations, and migration patterns across the continent continue to be debated in the scientific community.…”

“…The phylogenetic tree of the Y chromosome provides a development to address the issue of population history and movements within geographic territories, especially the colonization of South America, although it is accepted that the ancestors of the Native Americans arrived from Asia, the number of migratory waves, the places of origin and the moment, still represents one of the topics with the greatest debate in evolutionary studies [13,14,[18][19][20]32].…”