Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) genes can be an adequate tool in forensic anthropological studies: evaluation in a wide Caucasian Spanish population

ABSTRACT

Most immune system polymorphisms have undergone molecular evolution largely due to natural selection driven primarily by host-pathogen interactions, showing significant human geographic expansion signs. Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) show great genetic and allelic variation among different populations. The aim of this study was to analyse the frequency of KIR genes in a large cohort of healthy Spanish Caucasians (SC) to be able to compare them with other world populations. A total of 609 healthy SC unrelated individuals were analysed and compared with 16 worldwide populations. KIR genotyping was analysed by PCR-SSO technique. Our results showed that all KIR genes were present in the Spanish population. iKIR2D genes of the Spanish population were similar in different European populations like Danish, Finland, Irish and Italian populations, Czech and Turkish populations but very different to Australian, Bornean, Chinese, Indian, Venezuelan, and Russian populations. KIR3DL1 gene frequency in the Australian population was significantly lower than the Spanish population. aKIR genes frequencies of the Spanish population were similar to European populations, but slight differences were found in English, Finnish, Irish and Macedonian populations. In conclusion, our results enrich the Caucasian genetic information resources of the KIR gene pool for genetic susceptibility diseases and forensic anthropological studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Anthropology
• forensic genetics
• forensic sciences
• KIR genes
• Spanish population

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the support from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), our work was possible thanks to the Spanish Ministry of Economic and Competitiveness. Grant Number PI15/01370 and PI19/01194 and co-funding of the European Union with European Fund of Regional Development (FEDER) with the principle of “A manner to build Europe”. Isabel Legaz was a postdoctoral researcher from the Sara Borrell program of the Spanish Health Ministry (ISCIII).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).