Abstract
This study examines the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity of the Croatian-speaking minority of Molise and evaluates its potential genetic relatedness to the neighbouring Italian groups and the Croatian parental population. Intermatch, genetic distance, and admixture analyses highlighted the genetic similarity between the Croatians of Molise and the neighbouring Italian populations and demonstrated that the Croatian-Italian ethnic minority presents features lying between Croatians and Italians. This finding was confirmed by a phylogeographic approach, which revealed both the prevalence of Croatian and the penetrance of Italian maternal lineages in the Croatian community of Molise. These results suggest that there was no reproductive isolation between the two geographically proximate, yet culturally distinct populations living in Italy. The gene flow between the Croatian-Italians and the surrounding Italian populations indicate, therefore, that ethnic consciousness has not created reproductive barriers and that the Croatian-speaking minority of Molise does not represent a reproductively isolated entity.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank all the subjects, Professor Gabriella Girelli and Sandra Guglielmi for their cooperation in sample collection, Professor Giorgio Bertorelle for his advice on the admixture analysis, and Kenneth Britsch for the English revision of the manuscript. We also very much appreciated the critical comments of the anonymous referees, which improved the quality of the paper. This work was supported by CNR (Contract No. C00A547-002 AG 2000), by the ‘Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca Scientifica 1 (MURST) through 60 and 40% grants allotted to OR, by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports Grant No. 0196005 to PR and 0196002 to AS, and by Estonian Basic Research Grant No. 514 to RV and ETF Grant No. 5574 to TK.
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Babalini, C., Martínez-Labarga, C., Tolk, HV. et al. The population history of the Croatian linguistic minority of Molise (southern Italy): a maternal view. Eur J Hum Genet 13, 902–912 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201439
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201439
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