Genetic structure of the ethnic populations Lua and H’tin in Northern Thailand

Abstract

The Lua are recognized as the first modern inhabitants of Northern Thailand and play an important role in Northern Thai history. There is no evidence stating that the Lua are in the Nan province, the place where the H’tin, who migrated from Laos, reside. The objectives of this study are to depict whether the Lua in Nan are the same ethnicity as the ancient Lua in northern Thai history, or they are the H’tin who call themselves. Lua; and to investigate the genetic structure between males and females of studied populations and the factors affecting their structure, employing the Y-chromosomal microsatellites and mtDNA as markers. The studied populations comprise 4 Lua subgroups from Mae Hong Son (Lua-1), Chiang Mai (Lua-2), and Nan (Lua-3 and Lua-4) provinces, as well as 3 H’tin subgroups from Nan: the Mai (H’tin-1), and Prai (H’tin-2, H’tin-3). The results revealed that the genetic structures of the Lua in Nan differed from the ancient Lua, hence they should not be the same ethnic group. The Lua-3 from Nan could be the same ethnicity as H’tin-1 (Mal), while the Lua-4 could be the same ethnicity as H’tin-3 and H’tin-4 (Prai). Furthermore, the sex-biased genetic structure in the studied populations was observed. The difference in post-marital residence, geography, language, as well as founder effect and/or inbreeding suggested the integrated effect on the genetic structure of the studied populations.