Mitochondrial origin of the matrilocal Mosuo people in China

Abstract

The Mosuo people are currently the only matrilocal population in China. The origins of the population and their matrilocal tradition remain unknown. To address these questions, we studied the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity of the Mosuo. Lower mtDNA diversity is expected in matrilocal populations because the women remain with their families after marriage, and there is generally less movement of mtDNA genomes in matrilocal populations. However, the haplotype diversity of this population is not lower than the neighboring patrilocal populations, indicating that the Mosuo started practicing matrilocality at least after the Paleolithic Age. A previous haplogroup frequency clustering study indicated that the Mosuo are closest to the Naxi people, but the network analysis of individual sequence haplotypes presented herein shows that most Mosuo lineages cluster with Pumi lineages. Therefore, we concluded that the Mosuo people have the closest genetic relationship with the Pumi, and that they started to practice matrilocality several thousand years ago.

Keywords::

• Molecular anthropology
• maternal lineage
• matrilocal populations
• Southwest China

Acknowledgements

Our research was partially supported by the Genographic project. We are also grateful to the support of the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (10ZR1402200), Shanghai Commission of Education Research Innovation Key Project (11zz04), and the Science and Technology Committee of Shanghai Municipality (09540704300).

Genographic Consortium members: Syama Adhikarla (Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India), Christina J. Adler (University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), Elena Balanovska (Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia), Oleg Balanovsky (Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia), Doron M. Behar (Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel), Jaume Bertranpetit (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain), Andrew C. Clarke (University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand), David Comas (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain), Alan Cooper (University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), Clio S. I. Der Sarkissian (University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), Matthew C. Dulik (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA), Christoff J. Erasmus (National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa), Jill B. Gaieski (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA), ArunKumar GaneshPrasad (Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India), Wolfgang Haak (University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), Angela Hobbs (National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa), Asif Javed (IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA), Matthew E. Kaplan (University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA), Shilin Li (Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China), Begoña Martínez-Cruz (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain), Elizabeth A. Matisoo-Smith (University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand), Marta Melé (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain), Nirav C. Merchant (University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA), R. John Mitchell (La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), Amanda C. Owings (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA), Laxmi Parida (IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA), Ramasamy Pitchappan (Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India), Daniel E. Platt (IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA), Lluis Quintana-Murci (Institut Pasteur, Paris, France), Colin Renfrew (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK), Daniela R. Lacerda (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil), Ajay K. Royyuru (IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA), Fabrício R. Santos (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil), Theodore G. Schurr (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA), Himla Soodyall (National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa), David F. Soria Hernanz (National Geographic Society, Washington, DC, USA), Pandikumar Swamikrishnan (IBM, Somers, NY, USA), Chris Tyler-Smith (The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK), Kavitha Valampuri John (Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India), Arun Varatharajan Santhakumari (Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India), Pedro Paulo Vieira (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), R. Spencer Wells (National Geographic Society, Washington, DC, USA), Janet S. Ziegle (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA).

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.