Genetic polymorphism of 27 Y-STR loci in Kazakh populations from Northern Kazakhstan

Abstract

Background

Previous studies of the genetic polymorphism of the Y-chromosome of Kazakhs were focussed on the Eastern, Central, Southern, and Western regions of Kazakhstan. In addition, many of these studies were limited to 17 Y-STR loci from the Yfiler.

Aim

To enrich the existing Kazakhstan Y-chromosome Haplotype Reference Database from the Northern Kazakh population data by a wide set of 27 Y-STR and investigate the population genetic relationships with previously published data.

Subjects and methods

Twenty-seven Y-STR loci from the Yfiler Plus PCR Amplification Kit were analysed in 382 healthy unrelated Kazakh males from Northern Kazakhstan. Genetic polymorphism was analysed using Arlequin software.

Results

A total of 326 distinct haplotypes of the 27 Y-STR loci were observed in 382 individuals. The discrimination capacity (0.9982) and haplotype diversity (0.8534) were computed. A total of 168 alleles at single-copy loci were observed and their frequencies ranged from 0.003–0.843. The pairwise genetic distance (R_ST) showed that the Northern Kazakh population is genetically distinct from the Chinese Kazakh population.

Conclusions

Genetic polymorphism shows that the potential value of 27 Y-STR loci for forensic casework in the Northern Kazakh population and the current findings might be beneficial for paternal lineages in the study of population genetics.

Keywords:

• Haplotype diversity
• Y-chromosomal STR
• Kazakh population
• Yfiler Plus
• YHRD

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge all sample donors who participated in this study.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the National Centre for Biotechnology (№2 of 1 August 2019) and the Ethics Committee of the Asfendiyarov Kazakh National Medical University for M.Aitkhozhin Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (№6 of 29 October 2012).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan [Grant No. AP09561774, No. 4050/GF4].