GENYO - Centro Pfizer-Universidad de Granada-Junta de Andalucía de Genómica y Oncología, Granada, Spain.
Eur J Hum Genet. 2012 Feb;20(2):211-6. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2011.162. Epub 2011 Aug 17.
According to most historians, Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy. However, based on some key facts in the discoverer's biography, as well as in the linguistic analysis of his texts, some historians and linguists believe that Columbus could have been of Catalan origin. A Ligurian Columbus would have carried the Colombo surname, whereas he would have been called Colom if he were Catalan. In order to test whether it would be possible to discriminate between a Ligurian or a Catalan origin were Columbus' Y-chromosome haplotype to be retrieved, we genotyped 17 Y-chromosome STRs in 238 Spanish (from Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands) and French Colom men, and 114 North Italian Colombo (from Liguria, Lombardy, and Piedmont). The Italian samples and, in particular, the Lombard Colombos were genetically as diverse as the general population, and we found little evidence of clusters of haplotypes that could indicate descent from a single founder. Colombo is actually the most frequent surname in Lombardy, where foundlings and orphans used to be given the surname Colombo. By contrast, Y-chromosome diversity was reduced in the Iberian Colom, where most of the men had Y chromosomes belonging to a few lineages. This implies that a positive identification would be more likely if Columbus were of Catalan descent. In this study, we have shown the diverse dynamics of two surnames linked by their etymology, in what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first genetic analysis of a surname in Southern Europe.
根据大多数历史学家的说法，克里斯托弗·哥伦布出生于意大利热那亚。然而，根据这位发现者传记中的一些关键事实，以及对他的文本的语言分析，一些历史学家和语言学家认为，哥伦布可能来自加泰罗尼亚。如果哥伦布是利古里亚人，他的姓氏应该是科隆波；而如果他是加泰罗尼亚人，则应该叫科伦坡。为了检验如果能够检索到哥伦布的 Y 染色体单倍型，是否有可能区分他的利古里亚或加泰罗尼亚血统，我们对来自西班牙（来自加泰罗尼亚、瓦伦西亚和巴利阿里群岛）和法国科伦坡的 238 名男性以及来自意大利北部的 114 名利古里亚、伦巴第和皮埃蒙特的科隆波进行了 17 个 Y 染色体 STR 基因分型。意大利样本，特别是伦巴第的科隆波，在遗传上与一般人群一样多样化，我们几乎没有发现表明从单一祖先传承下来的单倍型集群的证据。事实上，科隆波是伦巴第最常见的姓氏，在那里，弃儿和孤儿通常被赋予科隆波这个姓氏。相比之下，伊比利亚的科伦坡的 Y 染色体多样性减少了，大多数男性的 Y 染色体都属于少数几个谱系。这意味着如果哥伦布是加泰罗尼亚血统，那么进行身份鉴定的可能性就更大。在这项研究中，我们展示了两个姓氏的多样化动态，它们的词源相关，这是我们所知的在南欧进行的第一个姓氏遗传分析。
