ANCESTRY AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF THE INDIANS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPWITH OTHER WORLD POPULATIONS - A STUDY BASED ON MITOCHONDRIAL-DNA POLYMORPHISMS

Mitochondrial DNA variation was studied in 100 Indians using the same set of six restriction enzymes used in the study of other world ethnic groups in order to compare and discern possible relationships of the Indian populations. Twenty nine mtDNA types were found including the o nes from an earlier study (Semino et al. 1991) and unweighted pair-gro up method (UPGMA) and maximum parsimony trees were constructed using t he mtDNA types. The nucleotide diversity values were calculated using the maximum likelihood method. From a study of the shared mitochondria l DNA types and the parsimony tree (Fig. 2) we came to the conclusion that the Indian population is closer to Caucasians and has an admixtur e with Asians. The North Indian population appears to have a recent ad mixture of the Caucasian mtDNA types which is absent in the south.