RT Journal
A1 Perego, Ugo A.
A1 Angerhofer, Norman
A1 Pala, Maria
A1 Olivieri, Anna
A1 Lancioni, Hovirag
A1 Kashani, Baharak Hooshiar
A1 Carossa, Valeria
A1 Ekins, Jayne E.
A1 Gómez-Carballa, Alberto
A1 Huber, Gabriela
A1 Zimmermann, Bettina
A1 Corach, Daniel
A1 Babudri, Nora
A1 Panara, Fausto
A1 Myres, Natalie M.
A1 Parson, Walther
A1 Semino, Ornella
A1 Salas, Antonio
A1 Woodward, Scott R.
A1 Achilli, Alessandro
A1 Torroni, Antonio
T1 The initial peopling of the Americas: A growing number of founding mitochondrial genomes from Beringia
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2010 
FD September 01 
VO 20 
IS 9 
SP 1174 
OP 1179 
DO 10.1101/gr.109231.110 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/20/9/1174.abstract 
AB Pan-American mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup C1 has been recently subdivided into three branches, two of which (C1b and C1c) are characterized by ages and geographical distributions that are indicative of an early arrival from Beringia with Paleo-Indians. In contrast, the estimated ages of C1d—the third subset of C1—looked too young to fit the above scenario. To define the origin of this enigmatic C1 branch, we completely sequenced 63 C1d mitochondrial genomes from a wide range of geographically diverse, mixed, and indigenous American populations. The revised phylogeny not only brings the age of C1d within the range of that of its two sister clades, but reveals that there were two C1d founder genomes for Paleo-Indians. Thus, the recognized maternal founding lineages of Native Americans are at least 15, indicating that the overall number of Beringian or Asian founder mitochondrial genomes will probably increase extensively when all Native American haplogroups reach the same level of phylogenetic and genomic resolution as obtained here for C1d.