Allele frequencies for 15 autosomal STR markers in the Libyan population

Abstract

Background: Until recently Libya remained the only state of the Maghreb without genetic evolution investigations of the genetic landscape of its population. Apart from some studies of Libyan Jews and Libyan Tuareg, only two recent investigations, based on autosomal ancestry informative SNP and mitochondrial DNA markers, have concerned the general Libyan population.

Aim: The present work is the first to describe STR markers polymorphism in the general Libyan population in order to contribute to the analysis of its genetic diversity for forensic purposes.

Subjects and Methods: Allele frequencies for 15 STR loci (CSF1PO, D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, D21S11, FGA, TH01, TPOX, VWA, D2S1338, D19S433) included in the AmpFlSTR Identifiler kit were determined in a sample of 99 unrelated individuals originating from the general Libyan population.

Results: No deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium were observed, with the exception of CSF1PO. Genetic parameters of forensic interest such as combined power of discrimination (PD) and combined probability of exclusion (PE) showed values higher than 0.999. Comparisons with data from other North African populations showed significant differences between Libyans and Tunisians, Moroccans and Egyptians.

Conclusions: The high informativity observed for these 15 STRs in a Libyan population demonstrates their usefulness for forensic and parental purposes.

Keywords::

• Libya
• Population Genetics
• North Africa
• DNA
• STRs

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the DNA donors who made this study possible. This work was partially supported by the Tunisian Ministry of High Education, Scientific Research and Technology and approved by the national ethical committee. We thank Dr. Clotide Coudray for providing STR data for Moroccan and Egyptian populations. IPATIMUP is partially funded by the VI Framework Program ‘‘Programa Operacional Ciência e Inovação” (POCI 2010).

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper