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The state of Santa Catarina (Brazil) is known to have represented a cultural crossroads in South America due to several historic migrations mainly from Europe and Africa. We set out to scrutinize whether the genetic imprint of these migrations could be traced through analysis of the matrilineal gene pool of the Catarinenses. The entire control region of the mitochondrial DNA was studied in 80 healthy and maternally unrelated individuals. The analysis of haplogroup distribution revealed that this population is extremely heterogeneous, showing the coexistence of matrilineal lineages with three different phylogeographic origins. European lineages are the most frequent due mainly to the impact of relatively recent migratory waves from Europe. In spite of this, Native American lineages and African lineages incorporated with the slave trade are also present in noticeable proportions. The strikingly high variability generated by intense gene flow is mirrored in a high sequence diversity (0.9930) and power of discrimination (0.9806). Thus, analysis of the entire mitochondrial DNA control region emerges as a valuable tool for forensic genetic purposes in this highly admixed population, an attribute common to several present-day Latin American populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The study of the hypervariable segments HVS-I and HVS-II of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region of 80 healthy and maternally unrelated individuals revealed that the population from Santa Catarina is extremely heterogeneous, mainly due to the impact of relatively recent migratory waves from Europe. In spite of this, Native American lineages as well as African lineages incorporated much earlier are also present at noticeable proportions. This strikingly high variability generated by the intense gene flow is mirrored in a high power of discrimination (97.69%), which makes the analysis of mitochondrial HVS-I and HVS-II segments very useful for forensic genetic purposes in this Brazilian population. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]