Surnames, ABO system and miscegenation in highlands population of provinceof Jujuy (Northwest Argentine)

Surnames are a powerful and very useful tool for the study of generic struc ture, identification, and estimation of the ethnic origins and racial admix ture of human populations. The purpose of this paper was to assess the rela tionship between the ABO system alleles and the classification of individua ls according to their surnames in order to infer the miscegenation in high altitude populations of Jujuy, a province of the north west in Argentina. Information on the ABO system phenotypes was obtained from 5,132 individual s registered with the Blood Donor Records of hospitals in the province of J ujuy, representative of three ecosystems located at different heights over sea level: 1. Inhabitants of the Valley (at 500-1,200 m. above sea level, 2 . Quebrada people (1,200 to 2,900 m. above sea level); and 3. Puna or highe r Andes area people (2,900 to 4,500 m. above sea level). The data on each o f these populations was subdivided into two groups according to a classific ation of surnames into autochthonous or native names. and foreign ones, to determine: 1. Frequencies of the ABO system alleles; 2. Percentage of misce genation. Alleles were distributed according to altitudinal gradients. Frequency of t he 0 allele increased with altitude level, while A and B alleles showed the opposite trend. The highest miscegenation percentage was recorded at the l owest altitudinal level and it decreased with altitude, both in autochthono us and foreign name bearing individuals. Our results were in concurrence with historical and demographic data of Juj eno population settlement and showed that when surnames were used as extra- generic markers they provided additional information on biological characte ristics and microevolution of these populations.