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. 2018 May 1;13(5):e0196325.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196325. eCollection 2018.

Population structure in Argentina

Marina Muzzio  1   2 , Josefina M B Motti  3 , Paula B Paz Sepulveda  1 , Muh-Ching Yee  4 , Thomas Cooke  4 , María R Santos  1   2 , Virginia Ramallo  5 , Emma L Alfaro  6 , Jose E Dipierri  6 , Graciela Bailliet  1 , Claudio M Bravi  1   2 , Carlos D Bustamante  4 , Eimear E Kenny  7
Affiliations

Population structure in Argentina

Marina Muzzio et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

We analyzed 391 samples from 12 Argentinian populations from the Center-West, East and North-West regions with the Illumina Human Exome Beadchip v1.0 (HumanExome-12v1-A). We did Principal Components analysis to infer patterns of populational divergence and migrations. We identified proportions and patterns of European, African and Native American ancestry and found a correlation between distance to Buenos Aires and proportion of Native American ancestry, where the highest proportion corresponds to the Northernmost populations, which is also the furthest from the Argentinian capital. Most of the European sources are from a South European origin, matching historical records, and we see two different Native American components, one that spreads all over Argentina and another specifically Andean. The highest percentages of African ancestry were in the Center West of Argentina, where the old trade routes took the slaves from Buenos Aires to Chile and Peru. Subcontinentaly, sources of this African component are represented by both West Africa and groups influenced by the Bantu expansion, the second slightly higher than the first, unlike North America and the Caribbean, where the main source is West Africa. This is reasonable, considering that a large proportion of the ships arriving at the Southern Hemisphere came from Mozambique, Loango and Angola.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Distribution of the sampling locations in Argentina.
Dots show the sampling locations included in this study.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Principal component analysis.
On the x axis is PC 1 while PC2 is the y axis. Plus symbols represent Argentinian samples and circles are for reference panels. Fig 2a (left) Argentinians with YRI and LWK for African references (“African”), IBS and TSI for European references (“European”) and the PEL, MXL, PUR and CLM as a Latin American references. Fig 2b (right) samples from Argentina with IBS, MXL, CLM and PEL.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Admixture results.
With 3 (K = 3) (Fig 3a, top), 9 groups (K = 9) (Fig 3b, middle) and ancestry components averaged across individuals in each per population (Fig 3c, bottom). In K = 9 there is an Andean component among the Peruvians (PEL) and the Argentinians from the North West (ANW).
Fig 4
Fig 4. Treemix results.
Fig 4 (left) Argentinian populations pooled by region and the GBR, CEU, TSI and IBS reference panels from the 1000 Genomes Project. The arrows reflect gene flow from the European source towards each Argentinian group with its percentage written.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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