Boattini Alessio, Luiselli Donata, Sazzini Marco, Useli Antonella, Tagarelli Giuseppe, Pettener Davide
Dipartimento di Biologia E.S., Area di Antropologia, Università di Bologna, Via Selmi 3, Bologna, Italy.
Ann Hum Biol. 2011 Jan;38(1):59-68. doi: 10.3109/03014460.2010.491837. Epub 2010 Jul 1.
The Arbereshe are an Albanian-speaking ethno-linguistic minority who settled in Calabria (southern Italy) about five centuries ago.
This study aims to clarify the genetic relationships between Italy and the Balkans through analysis of Y-chromosome variability in a peculiar case study, the Arbereshe.
Founder surnames were used as a means to identify a sample of individuals that might trace back to the Albanians at the time of their establishment in Italy. These results were compared with data of more than 1000 individuals from Italy and the Balkans.
The distributions of haplogroups (defined using 31 UEPs) and haplotypes (12 STRs) show that the Italian and Balkan populations are clearly divergent from each other. Within this genetic landscape, the Arbereshe are characterized by two peculiarities: (a) they are a clear outlier in the Italian genetic background, showing a strong genetic affinity with southern Balkans populations; and (b) they retain a high degree of genetic diversity.
These results support the hypothesis that the surname-chosen Arbereshe are representative of the Y-chromosome genetic variability of the Albanian founder population. Accordingly, the Arbereshe genetic structure can contribute to the interpretation of the recent biological history of the southern Balkans. Intra-haplogroup analyses suggest that this area may have experienced important changes in the last five centuries, resulting in a marked increase in the frequency of haplogroups I2a and J2.
阿尔贝雷什人是一个说阿尔巴尼亚语的民族语言少数群体，大约在五个世纪前定居在意大利南部的卡拉布里亚。
本研究旨在通过对一个特殊案例——阿尔贝雷什人的Y染色体变异性进行分析，来阐明意大利与巴尔干半岛之间的遗传关系。
使用创始姓氏作为一种手段，来识别可能追溯到阿尔巴尼亚人在意大利定居时的个体样本。将这些结果与来自意大利和巴尔干半岛的1000多名个体的数据进行比较。
单倍群（使用31个单核苷酸多态性定义）和单倍型（12个短串联重复序列）的分布表明，意大利人和巴尔干半岛人群彼此明显不同。在这种遗传格局中，阿尔贝雷什人有两个特点：（a）他们在意大利遗传背景中是一个明显的异常值，与巴尔干半岛南部人群表现出很强的遗传亲和力；（b）他们保留了高度的遗传多样性。
这些结果支持这样一种假设，即通过姓氏选择的阿尔贝雷什人代表了阿尔巴尼亚创始人群体的Y染色体遗传变异性。因此，阿尔贝雷什人的遗传结构有助于解释巴尔干半岛南部最近的生物历史。单倍群内分析表明，该地区在过去五个世纪可能经历了重要变化，导致单倍群I2a和J2的频率显著增加。
