Analysis of mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in Guangdong Han Chinese

Chen, Feng; Wang, Sha-Yan; Zhang, Ruan-Zhang; Hu, Yu-Hua; Gao, Guo-Feng; Liu, Yan-Hui; Kong, Qing-Peng

doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2007.10.122

« Previous Next »Forensic Science International: Genetics
Volume 2, Issue 2 , Pages 150-153, March 2008

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in Guangdong Han Chinese

Feng Chen
- Shenzhen People's Hospital, Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen 518020, China
- These authors contributed equally to this work.
Sha-Yan Wang
- Shenzhen People's Hospital, Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen 518020, China
- These authors contributed equally to this work.
- Co-corresponding author. Tel.: +86 755 25633958; fax: +86 755 25633958.
Ruan-Zhang Zhang
- Shenzhen People's Hospital, Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen 518020, China
Yu-Hua Hu
- Shenzhen People's Hospital, Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen 518020, China
Guo-Feng Gao
- Shenzhen People's Hospital, Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen 518020, China
Yan-Hui Liu
- Sun Yat-sen University Tungwah Dongguan Tungwah Hospital, Dongguan 523110, China
Qing-Peng Kong
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resource and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China
- Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 871 5199030; fax: +86 871 5195430.

Received 7 August 2007; received in revised form 28 August 2007; accepted 13 October 2007.

Abstract

Previous investigations on Chinese mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation revealed that the matrilineal gene pool of southern Han Chinese is rather complex, with much higher genetic diversity and more basal/ancient lineages than the northern Hans. The extreme case is Guangdong Han populations, among which pronounced (matrilineal) differentiation has been observed, indicative of complex demography of the region. To get more insights into the maternal makeup of southern Han Chinese, mtDNA variation of a total of 106 individuals sampled from Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China, was analyzed in this study. With the aid of the information from control-region hypervariable segments I and II (HVS-I and -II) as well as some necessary coding-region segments, the phylogenetic status of all mtDNAs under examination were determined according to the reconstructed East Asian mtDNA tree. In this way, the mtDNAs have been classified into various haplogroups or sub-haplogroups. The southern-prevalent haplogroups, such as R9 (20.8%), B (17.9%), M7b (14.2%), show relatively high distribution frequencies in Dongguan Hans; whereas the frequencies of Northern-prevalent haplogroups (with the exception of D) are quite low: C (1.9%), G2 (1.9%) and Z (1.9%), indicating the southern-origin of Dongguan Hans.

Keywords: Han Chinese, Guangdong, mtDNA, Phylogeny, Haplogroup