Corsica y-dna (Ghiani, 2009)

[argiedude]

There's no link to an abstract, it seems to have been published in a specialized magazine or something.

But from PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez) there's the following:

Significant genetic differentiation within the population of the Island of Corsica (France) revealed by y-chromosome analysis.

Ghiani ME, Varesi L, Mitchell RJ, Vona G.

Section of Anthropology, Department of Experimental Biology, University of Cagliari, Monserrato-Cagliari, Italy. meghiani@unica.it

Using 10 Y-chromosome short tandem repeat allelic and haplotypic frequencies, we examined genetic variation within the population of Corsica and its relationship with other Mediterranean populations. The most significant finding is the high level of genetic differentiation within Corsica, with strong evidence of an effective barrier to male-mediated gene flow between the south and the rest of the island. This internal differentiation most probably results from low exogamy among small isolated populations and also from the orography of the island, with a central mountain chain running the length of the island restricting human movement. This physical barrier is reflected not only in present-day intraisland linguistic and genetic differences but also in the relatedness of Corsican regions to other Mediterranean groups. Northwest and Central Corsica are much closer to West Mediterranean populations, whereas South Corsica is closer to Central-North Sardinia and East Mediterranean populations.

---------------------------

Could someone obtain this study? I'm thinking specially about Maliclavelli, since it seems to be from an Italian journal. This could have some interesting R1b1*/R1b1a results.

[Maliclavelli]

Argiedude, I saw yesterday this paper quoted on "Genealogy-dna" and I wrote to my friend Costa Tsirigakis I would have read it gladly, not being for free. I have the same your desire.

[F.E.C.]

Interesting. I seem to gather that the people of Corsica is largely of continental Italian descent (as their names suggest).

By the way, it's not clear to me what are their sources to establish this 'relatedness'. In particular, I fail to see how can Sardinia be related to the "East Mediterranean populations" when it's 50% R1b+I2a.

[Maliclavelli]

Francesco, it is due to the same reasoning of Vizachero, who have always thought that R1b1a (now M18) in Sardinia was of Phoenician descent and not the contrary as it probably is; that Italians are Middle Easterners, Phoenicians, etc. The same reasoning I have always fought, which caused me two banishments etc. Now I am seeing that also Bonnie Schrack, an expert of YDNA J, is writing the same on "Genealogy-dna". Perhaps these last findings, with their data, are making that everything is going to change.

The fact that Corsicans are linked to Tuscans is known, but that Cruciani has found there some R1b1a/M18 like in Sardinia demonstrates, I think, that they have also an old link with Sardinians.

[F.E.C.]

Actually, I2a+R1b in North Sardinia is probably much higher than 50%. BTW, has anyone read this study?

Population data for Y-chromosome haplotypes defined by AmpFlSTR YFiler PCR amplification kit in North Sardinia (Italy).

Ghiani ME, Mameli A, Piras G, Berti A, Calo CM, Vona G.

Section of Anthropology, Department of Experimental Biology, University of Cagliari, Monserrato-Cagliari, Italy. meghiani@unica.it

The 17 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) included in the AmpFlSTR YFiler Amplification Kit (AB Applied Biosystems) (DYS19, DYS3891, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS385, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635 and GATA H4.1) were typed in 100 samples from North Sardinia (Italy). A total of 91 different haplotypes were found, where 9 haplotypes were shared by two individuals. The overall haplotype diversity (HD) was 0.9982. DYS458 non-consensus alleles were found in one samples, and one in the DYS438. We found a double peak in one sample for the DYS19 with alleles 15/16. Population comparisons with available 10 YSTR loci data in Mediterranean Basin samples were undertaken, significant differences were observed between our sample and all the compared populations, except for a entire sample from Sardinia. Prediction of haplogroups showed I2al was found to be the most frequent haplogroup (33%) in our sample. Testing high-resolution Y-chromosome data sets it is useful in autochthonous population and micro-population studies to highlight the most informative loci for evolutionary aims.

[Maliclavelli]

Thanks to Costa Tsirigakis I received the paper "Population Data for Y-Chromosome Haplotypes Defined by AmpFISTR YFiler PCR Amplification Kit in North Sardinia (Italy)" by Ghiani et al. Apart the usual prejudice that “Moreover it has been hypothesized that the marked West-East cline across countries of the Mediterranean region in DYS392 allele frequencies  represents the genome carried  by the present  day descendants of the Neolithic farmers  who moved from the Near East into Southern Europe and North Africa some 8,000 years ago” ( page 646), and apart the use of the Athey calculator for determining the haplogroup, more and more unreliable for  a Region like Sardinia, which has probably some of the most ancient haplotypes, the data are very interesting. Not only the high percentage of I-M26, the presence of many non-consensus values (sign I think of particular and very ancient haplotypes), the presence of J* (x J1/J2) etc. Re. hg. R it is ridiculous that the most part of them are attributed to R1a, having they DYS392=13 and not the usual 11 (if true, they would be the most ancient R1a). Probably they are R1b1 of different clade and also the R1b have a high variance.

[argiedude]

Great news, Maliclavelli. Can you upload the study?

[Maliclavelli]

The attribution of haplogroups in Ghiani et alii is a pure madness: R1a-s are R1b-s, R1b-s are T-s, Q-s are R1a-s etc. If we can believe that the STRs results are true, anyway the paper will be able to be useful, but we must attribute the haplogroups by ourselves.

[Maliclavelli]

The G2a with DYS19=15-16 finds a close match (except DYS 389II=31) in a person from Cagliari of a previous research. We find some close matches in a Haar from Germany (Ysearch XPRCX) and an American Browne (Ysearch EYJWK). Unfortunately an anonymous and another anonymous from Iran with DYS19=15,16 aren’t known.
We can think that, as Sardinia was a center of dispersion of Hg. G (see Yunusbaev, Populjatsionno-geneticeskoe issledovanie narodov Dagestana po dannym o polimorfizme Y-khromosomy i Alu-insertsii, page  16 ), the German and American persons  came from the Italian refugium with other haplogroups from there, above all R1b1b2.

[Maliclavelli]

You can see also Ysearch S9RE4: Hudrlik from Czech Republik.

[argiedude]

Can you upload the STR results?

[Maliclavelli]

STRs results are in the paper. Haven't you received the whole paper?

[Maliclavelli]

In the previous paper on Sardinians there are three other G2a with DYS19=15,16 (two) and 14,15 but now I must go to work and have no time to examine them. There is another haplotype (M9) with DYS19=16,17 suspect to be M201. Often these Banausoi are unreliable.

[argiedude]

STRs results are in the paper. Haven't you received the whole paper?

No, is there a link to the data that I'm missing?

[argiedude]

The study was freely available this whole time!! Ha ha.

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/gtmb.2009.0075

The journal, Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers, apparently has a policy of allowing some editions to be freely available. It would be interesting to go through the entire site and see if there are other y-dna/mtdna studies:

http://www.liebertonline.com/gte

I still haven't looked at the Corsica data, but yeah, it's got the haplotypes and everything.