Patterns of Genetic Coding Variation in a Native American Population before and after European Contact.

The effects of European colonization on the genomes of Native Americans may have produced excesses of potentially deleterious features, mainly due to the severe reductions in population size and corresponding losses of genetic diversity. This assumption, however, neither considers actual genomic patterns that existed before colonization nor does it adequately capture the effects of admixture. In this study, we analyze the whole-exome sequences of modern and ancient individuals from a Northwest Coast First Nation, with a demographic history similar to other indigenous populations from the Americas.

Genetic Structure of First Nation Communities in the Pacific Northwest.

This study presents genetic data for nine Native American populations from northern North America. Analyses of genetic variation focus on the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Using mitochondrial, Y chromosomal, and autosomal DNA variants, we aimed to more closely address the relationships of geography and language with present genetic diversity among the regional PNW Native American populations.

Ancient individuals from the North American Northwest Coast reveal 10,000 years of regional genetic continuity.

Recent genomic studies of both ancient and modern indigenous people of the Americas have shed light on the demographic processes involved during the first peopling. The Pacific Northwest Coast proves an intriguing focus for these studies because of its association with coastal migration models and genetic ancestral patterns that are difficult to reconcile with modern DNA alone. Here, we report the low-coverage genome sequence of an ancient individual known as "Shuká áa" ("Man Ahead of Us") recovered from the On Your Knees Cave (OYKC) in southeastern Alaska (archaeological site 49-PET-408).

A time transect of exomes from a Native American population before and after European contact.

A major factor for the population decline of Native Americans after European contact has been attributed to infectious disease susceptibility. To investigate whether a pre-existing genetic component contributed to this phenomenon, here we analyse 50 exomes of a continuous population from the Northwest Coast of North America, dating from before and after European contact. We model the population collapse after European contact, inferring a 57% reduction in effective population size.

Patterns of admixture and population structure in native populations of Northwest North America.

The initial contact of European populations with indigenous populations of the Americas produced diverse admixture processes across North, Central, and South America. Recent studies have examined the genetic structure of indigenous populations of Latin America and the Caribbean and their admixed descendants, reporting on the genomic impact of the history of admixture with colonizing populations of European and African ancestry. However, relatively little genomic research has been conducted on admixture in indigenous North American populations.

Ancient DNA analysis of mid-holocene individuals from the Northwest Coast of North America reveals different evolutionary paths for mitogenomes.

To gain a better understanding of North American population history, complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) were generated from four ancient and three living individuals of the northern Northwest Coast of North America, specifically the north coast of British Columbia, Canada, current home to the indigenous Tsimshian, Haida, and Nisga'a. The mitogenomes of all individuals were previously unknown and assigned to new sub-haplogroup designations D4h3a7, A2ag and A2ah. The analysis of mitogenomes allows for more detailed analyses of presumed ancestor-descendant relationships than sequencing only the HVSI region of the mitochondrial genome, a more traditional approach in local population studies.