D1S80 LOCUS VARIABILITY IN SOUTH-AMERICAN INDIANS

We have studied the hypervariable D1S80 locus in 185 individuals from five South American Indian tribes, integrating these results with prev ious investigations. Three alleles (18, *24 and *30) were common to a ll tribes, but their Frequencies varied between northern and southern populations. Brazilian tribes have a high frequency of 30 (average 35 %) while in Argentinian and Chilean Indian populations this allele is present, on average, in 7% of the chromosomes only. Allele 24, the mo st common in other ethnic groups, was observed in 10% and 25% of north ern and southern Amerindians respectively. Genetic distance and dendro gram analyses placed the Argentinian and Chilean tribes closer to Braz ilian Caucasians, suggesting non-Indian admixture among them.