GENETIC-STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION OF CABO-VERDE (WEST-AFRICA) - EVIDENCE OF SUBSTANTIAL EUROPEAN ADMIXTURE

The population of Cabo Verde was founded in the fifteenth century (146 2), on the basis of slaves brought from the West African coast and a f ew Europeans, mainly from Portugal. The polymorphism of six red cell e nzymes (ADA, AK1, ALAD, ESD, GLO1, and PGD) and ten plasma proteins (A HSG, BF, F13A, F13B, GC, HP, ORM, PLG, TBG, and TF) was studied in a s ample of 268 individuals from Cabo Verde (West Africa). There is no st atistical evidence of genetic heterogeneity between the two groups of islands which constitute the archipelago, Barlavento and Sotavento. Th e gene frequency distribution observed in Cabo Verde differs, in many markers, from that of West African populations, suggesting an importan t European influence. The proportion of Caucasian genes in the populat ion of Cabo Verde has been calculated to be M = 0.3634 +/- 0.0510, and the considerable dispersion of the locus-specific admixture estimates seems to indicate random drift has also played a role in the evolutio n of the allele frequencies in the archipelago. Partition of the varia nce of the mean estimate in evolutionary and sampling variance shows t he evolutionary variance is more than ten times higher than the sampli ng variance. When dendrograms are constructed on the basis of differen t genetic distances, the population of Cabo Verde clusters with Afro-A mericans, forming a different group from the populations of the Africa n continent. This is interpreted as a consequence of the importance of Caucasian admixture both in Afro-Americans and in the population of C abo Verde. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.