Mitochondrial DNA analysis of Nonosabasut, a Beothuk Indian chief

• Main Author: Reed, April May
• Other Authors: Vann, Carolyn N.
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2001
• Subjects: Beothuk Indians > Ethnic identity; Indians of North America > Newfoundland and Labrador > Ethnic identity; Mitochondrial DNA > Analysis; Molecular biology; DNA fingerprinting; Indian; Newfoundland; Tooth The; Beothuk; Evenk
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/186945; http://liblink.bsu.edu/catkey/1221302

The Beothuk Indians were an extinct group of Amerinds who were among the earliest founders of Newfoundland. In literature, the Beothuk were described as perhaps being phenotypically more similar to Europeans than Asians (Gatschet 1890, Lloyd 1875, 1876a, Marshall 1996). In this research, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis was performed on a Beothuk individual in order to determine his haplotype and, perhaps, shed light on the origins of the Beothuk. For this analysis, a tooth of Nonosabasut, a Beothuk chief who did in 1819 was loaned from the Royal Museum of Scotland. Ancient DNA was extracted from 172 mg of dentin from the tooth. The DNA was cut with two blunt-end restriction enzymes, RsaI and HaeIII. Double-stranded DNA adapters were ligated to the blunt ends. A single adapter was used to amplify the resulting fragments using PCR. In this manner, two libraries of DNA were created that could be readily reamplified using a small amount of the PCR product. mtDNA type was determined by amplifying specific regions and performing Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism analysis and sequencing. It was determined that the Beothuk individual had a 9-bp deletion at nucleotide position (np) 8272, an AluI restriction site at np 5176, an heteroplasmy for a HincII restriction site at np 13,529, indicating that the Beothuk individual falls into the Native American Haplogroup B. Haplogroup B is not present in modern Siberian populations, whereas the remaining Native American mtDNA haplogroups are. It has been hypothesized that Haplogroup B arrived in the Americas at a different time than haplogroups A, C, D, and X, about 16,000-13,000 YBP (Years Before Present) (Strikovskaya et al. 1998). Haplogroup B can be found in some modern Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Evenk, and other Asian populations. Sequencing of the D-Loop region revealed a G to A transition at np 16303. To our knowledge, this transition was never previously reported in a Native American. This transition has been reported in Tibetans, Koreans, Hans, and Japanese, ...