engleski

Inferences of maternal genetic heritage of Bayash Roma in Croatia

The Bayash are a branch of Romanian speaking Roma living dispersedly in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. In order to investigate the origin of the Croatian Bayash maternal gene pool, we have sequenced hyper variable segment I (HVS-I) of mitochondrial DNA control region and typed relevant RFLP sites in the mitochondrial DNA of 390 Bayash from two Croatian regions: Baranja (235) and Medjimurje (155). The most frequent maternal lineages of the Bayash in Croatia (M5a and M35) belong to the M cluster testifying about their ancient Indian origin. European admixture in Bayash maternal gene pool is most evident in the occurrence of haplogroup H lineages (H1, H2, H4, H5, H6 and H11) with a frequency of 26%. Characteristic of Croatian Bayash maternal lineages is a significantly higher frequency of haplogroup X2 (19.5%) than in other Roma populations ; these lineages harbour specific HVS-I mutations not present in any of the populations that normally have this haplogroup. Haplogrups and haplotype distribution clearly shows that Bayash from Medjimurje represent isolated subset that shares common origin with Bayash from Baranja. Obtained results suggest that today’s Roma and Bayash genetic structure was influenced by endogamy and isolation along with genetic drift in small and dispersed subpopulations and few episodes of gene flow

mitochondrial DNA; haplogroup; Roma

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