Loredana Castrì

Publications (7)18.56 Total impact

• Source

  Available from: Donata Luiselli

  Dataset: Boattini et al., AJPA 13

  Alessio Boattini, Loredana Castrì, Stefania Sarno, Antonella Useli, Manuela Cioffi, Marco Sazzini, Paolo Garagnani, Sara De Fanti, Davide Pettener, Donata Luiselli
• Article: mtDNA variation in East Africa unravels the history of afro-asiatic groups.

  Alessio Boattini, Loredana Castrì, Stefania Sarno, Antonella Useli, Manuela Cioffi, Marco Sazzini, Paolo Garagnani, Sara De Fanti, Davide Pettener, Donata Luiselli
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  ABSTRACT: East Africa (EA) has witnessed pivotal steps in the history of human evolution. Due to its high environmental and cultural variability, and to the long-term human presence there, the genetic structure of modern EA populations is one of the most complicated puzzles in human diversity worldwide. Similarly, the widespread Afro-Asiatic (AA) linguistic phylum reaches its highest levels of internal differentiation in EA. To disentangle this complex ethno-linguistic pattern, we studied mtDNA variability in 1,671 individuals (452 of which were newly typed) from 30 EA populations and compared our data with those from 40 populations (2970 individuals) from Central and Northern Africa and the Levant, affiliated to the AA phylum. The genetic structure of the studied populations-explored using spatial Principal Component Analysis and Model-based clustering-turned out to be composed of four clusters, each with different geographic distribution and/or linguistic affiliation, and signaling different population events in the history of the region. One cluster is widespread in Ethiopia, where it is associated with different AA-speaking populations, and shows shared ancestry with Semitic-speaking groups from Yemen and Egypt and AA-Chadic-speaking groups from Central Africa. Two clusters included populations from Southern Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. Despite high and recent gene-flow (Bantu, Nilo-Saharan pastoralists), one of them is associated with a more ancient AA-Cushitic stratum. Most North-African and Levantine populations (AA-Berber, AA-Semitic) were grouped in a fourth and more differentiated cluster. We therefore conclude that EA genetic variability, although heavily influenced by migration processes, conserves traces of more ancient strata. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
  American Journal of Physical Anthropology 01/2013; · 2.82 Impact Factor
• Source

  Available from: Lorena Madrigal

  Article: Mitochondrial polymorphisms associated with differential longevity do not impact lifetime-reproductive success.

  Loredana Castrì, Lorena Madrigal, Mauricio Melendez-Obando, Ramon Villegas-Palma, Ramiro Barrantes, Henriette Raventos, Reynaldo Pereira, Donata Luiselli, Davide Pettener
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  ABSTRACT: To determine if individuals who carry mitochondrial markers which have been previously shown to affect longevity also have differential lifetime reproductive success (LRS). We extracted the mtDNA from living subjects residing in Atenas, Costa Rica. Since mtDNA does not recombine, and its probability of mutation is low, we assume that all maternal ancestors of the living subjects have the same mtDNA. We reconstructed the maternal genealogy of the living subjects, so that we have information on the LRS and longevity of the maternal ancestors of the living subjects. We compared the LRS of women who carried the 5178A marker in haplogroup D (associated with decreased longevity) and who carried the 150T polymorphism (associated with increased longevity) with the LRS of controls born in the same half century time period from 1750 to 1939. We found that the LRS of neither group of women with a longevity-associated polymorphism (LAP) differed from the LRS of controls, even if these women differed significantly from the controls in their longevity. Although LAPS significantly affect longevity, such differential longevity does not result in differential lifetime reproductive success. From an evolutionary perspective, these longevity-associated polymorphisms do not affect the carriers' Darwinian fitness.
  American Journal of Human Biology 03/2011; 23(2):225-7. · 2.27 Impact Factor
• Article: Mitochondrial DNA variability in the Titicaca basin: Matches and mismatches with linguistics and ethnohistory.

  Chiara Barbieri, Paul Heggarty, Loredana Castrì, Donata Luiselli, Davide Pettener
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  ABSTRACT: The Titicaca basin was the cradle of some of the major complex societies of pre-Columbian South America and is today home to three surviving native languages: Quechua, Aymara, and Uro. This study seeks to contribute to reconstructing the population prehistory of the region, by providing a first genetic profile of its inhabitants, set also into the wider context of South American genetic background. We report the first mitochondrial DNA first hypervariable segment sequences of native populations of the environs of Lake Titicaca: speakers of Aymara and Quechua, and the "Uros" of the Lake's floating islands. We sampled Aymara speakers from a locality where the Uro language was formerly documented, to check for possible language shift patterns. These data are compared with those for other Amerindian populations, collated from already published sources. Our results uncover the genetic distinctiveness of our formerly Uro but now Aymara-speaking sample, in contrast with a relative homogeneity for all the other Central Andean samples. The genetic affinities that characterize Central Andean populations are highly consistent with the succession of expansive polities in the region, culminating with the Incas. In the environs of Lake Titicaca, however, one subset of the present day Aymara-speaking population exhibits a peculiar position: perhaps a genetic correlate to their original Uro linguistic lineage (now extinct in the area), tallying with ethnohistorical claims for the distinctiveness of the Uro population. Our results emphasize the need for genetic descriptions to consider the widespread phenomenon of language shift.
  American Journal of Human Biology 11/2010; 23(1):89-99. · 2.27 Impact Factor
• Article: On the origins and admixture of Malagasy: new evidence from high-resolution analyses of paternal and maternal lineages.

  Sergio Tofanelli, Stefania Bertoncini, Loredana Castrì, Donata Luiselli, Francesc Calafell, Giuseppe Donati, Giorgio Paoli
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  ABSTRACT: The Malagasy have been shown to be a genetically admixed population combining parental lineages with African and South East Asian ancestry. In the present paper, we fit the Malagasy admixture history in a highly resolved phylogeographic framework by typing a large set of mitochondrial DNA and Y DNA markers in unrelated individuals from inland (Merina) and coastal (Antandroy, Antanosy, and Antaisaka) ethnic groups. This allowed performance of a multilevel analysis in which the diversity among main ethnic divisions, lineage ancestries, and modes of inheritance could be concurrently evaluated. Admixture was confirmed to result from the encounter of African and Southeast Asian people with minor recent male contributions from Europe. However, new scenarios are depicted about Malagasy admixture history. The distribution of ancestral components was ethnic and sex biased, with the Asian ancestry appearing more conserved in the female than in the male gene pool and in inland than in coastal groups. A statistic based on haplotype sharing (D(HS)), showing low sampling error and time linearity over the last 200 generations, was introduced here for the first time and helped to integrate our results with linguistic and archeological data. The focus about the origin of Malagasy lineages was enlarged in space and pushed back in time. Homelands could not be pinpointed but appeared to comprise two vast areas containing different populations from sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia. The pattern of diffusion of uniparental lineages was compatible with at least two events: a primary admixture of proto-Malay people with Bantu speakers bearing a western-like pool of haplotypes, followed by a secondary flow of Southeastern Bantu speakers unpaired for gender (mainly male driven) and geography (mainly coastal).
  Molecular Biology and Evolution 07/2009; 26(9):2109-24. · 5.55 Impact Factor
• Article: mtDNA variability in two Bantu-speaking populations (Shona and Hutu) from Eastern Africa: implications for peopling and migration patterns in sub-Saharan Africa.

  Loredana Castrì, Sergio Tofanelli, Paolo Garagnani, Carla Bini, Xenia Fosella, Susi Pelotti, Giorgio Paoli, Davide Pettener, Donata Luiselli
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  ABSTRACT: In this study, we report novel data on mitochondrial DNA in two of the largest eastern Bantu-speaking populations, the Shona from Zimbabwe and the Hutu from Rwanda. The goal is to evaluate the genetic relationships of these two ethnic groups with other Bantu-speaking populations. Moreover, by comparing our data with those from other Niger-Congo speaking populations, we aim to clarify some aspects of evolutionary and demographic processes accompanying the spread of Bantu languages in sub-Saharan Africa and to test if patterns of genetic variation fit with models of population expansion based on linguistic and archeological data. The results indicate that the Shona and Hutu are closely related to the other Bantu-speaking populations. However, there are some differences in haplogroup composition between the two populations, mainly due to different genetic contributions from neighboring populations. This result is confirmed by estimates of migration rates which show high levels of gene flow not only between pairs of Bantu-speaking populations, but also between Bantu and non-Bantu speakers. The observed pattern of genetic variability (high genetic homogeneity and high levels of gene flow) supports a linguistic model suggesting a gradual spread of Bantu-speakers, with strong interactions between the different lines of Bantu-speaker descent, and is also in agreement with recent archeological findings. In conclusion, our data emphasize the role that population admixture has played at different times and to varying degrees in the dispersal of Bantu languages.
  American Journal of Physical Anthropology 06/2009; 140(2):302-11. · 2.82 Impact Factor
• Source

  Available from: Lorena Madrigal

  Article: Indentured migration and differential gender gene flow: the origin and evolution of the East-Indian community of Limón, Costa Rica.

  Loredana Castrì, Flory Otárola, Mwenza Blell, Ernesto Ruiz, Ramiro Barrantes, Donata Luiselli, Davide Pettener, Lorena Madrigal
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  ABSTRACT: After the emancipation of African slaves in the Caribbean, the labor void left by out-migrating former slaves was filled by in-migrating indentured servants from prepartition India and China. In some areas of the Caribbean such as Trinidad, Suriname, and Guyana, the East-Indian migrants formed large communities. In this article, we report a study based on mtDNA and Y-chromosomal markers of a small East-Indian community from Limón, Costa Rica. The purpose of the project is to determine the place of origin in the Indian subcontinent of the ancestors of our group and the contributions to its gene pool through gene flow by members of other ethnic groups. Both Y-chromosome and mtDNA suggest that the Indo-Costa Ricans descend from migrants primarily from Central India. While both paternal and maternal markers indicate that this group is overwhelmingly of Indian origin, they also indicate that males and females of African, European, and Amerindian origin contributed to it differently. We discuss our results in the historical context of the virtual extinction of Amerindian Caribbean groups, the forced migration of African slaves to the Caribbean, and the gene flow between Amerindians, Europeans, East-Indians, and Africans that eventually produced the Caribbean's currently diverse gene pool.
  American Journal of Physical Anthropology 11/2007; 134(2):175-89. · 2.82 Impact Factor