Linkage disequilibrium patterns and genetic structure of Amerindian and non-Amerindian Brazilian populations revealed by long-range X-STR markers.

The extent of X-chromosome linkage disequilibrium (LD) was studied in a southern Brazilian population, and in a pool of samples from Amerindian populations. For this purpose, 11 microsatellites, located mostly in a Xq region comprising approximately 86 Mb was investigated. The lower Amerindian gene diversity associated with significant differences between the populations studied indicated population structure as the main cause for the higher LD values in the Amerindian pool.