Paleo-mtDNA analysis and population genetic aspects of old Thracian populations from South-East of Romania.

We have performed a study of mtDNA polymorphisms (HVR I and HVR II sequences) on the skeletal remains of some old Thracian populations from SE of Romania, dating from the Bronze and Iron Age in order to show their contribution to the foundation of the modern Romanian genetic pool and the degree of their genetic kinships with other old and modern human European populations. For this purpose we have applied and adapted three DNA extraction methods: the phenol/chloroform, the guanidine isotiocianat and silica particles and thirdly the Invisorb Forensic Kit (Invitek)-based DNA extraction method. We amplified by PCR short fragments of HVR I and HVR II and sequenced them by the Sanger method. So far, we have obtained mtDNA from 13 Thracian individuals, which we have compared with several modern mtDNA sequences from 5 European present-day populations . Our results reflect an evident genetic similarity between the old Thracian individuals and the modern populations from SE of Europe.
The mtDNA polymorphism analysis has been made by comparing the aDNA sequences with the modern European reference sequence, Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS) [6] and several modern mtDNA sequences from 5 European present-day populations, that is Romanian (our unpublished data), Greek, Bulgarian, Albanian and Moldovian populations [7] (20 DNA sequences out of each population), using the Bioedit Programme (Version 5.0.9.; Tom Hall, Departament of Microbiology, North Carolina State University)