Population genetic data of 22 autosomal STR loci for the Scheduled Caste population of Rajasthan India

Abstract

Aim

To study the genetic structure of the Scheduled Caste population of Rajasthan and its relationship with Indian and global populations using expanded 20 CODIS STR loci (autosomal) markers.

Subjects and methods

Blood samples of 226 healthy, unrelated adult individuals of the Scheduled Caste population of the Indian state of Rajasthan were taken from the routine casework of authors after obtaining written informed consent. Autosomal STR markers included in PowerPlex^® Fusion 5 C and GlobalFiler™ PCR amplification kits were used to explore the genetic diversity of the studied population. Amplicons were separated using Genetic Analyser 3500XL as per the recommended protocol.

Results

Observed heterozygosity for the studied population ranged from 0.681(CSF1PO) to 0.881 (D1S1656).Combined Discrimination Power and Combined Exclusion Power were observed as 1 and 0.9999999852, respectively. The highest Discrimination Power was observed for the locus D1S1656. In the population comparison test, Nei’s Da distance-based Neighbor-Joining (NJ) dendrogram revealed two significant clusters of geographically close Indian and East Asian populations along with a few small groups of outlier populations.

Conclusion

The matching probability for 20 STR markers was observed as 7.02 × 10⁻²⁴ and paternity index as 5.55 × 10⁷. These values play a key role in forensic applications.The studied population showed a higher genetic affinity with geographically closer populations than the distant ones. This caste-based population data is expected to play an important role in forensic DNA applications and genetic studies.

Keywords:

• Scheduled Caste
• forensic application
• CODIS
• STR

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Director of State Forensic Science Laboratory, Jaipur, Rajasthan (India), for permitting to conduct the study.

Author contributions

A.K. designed the study and drafted the manuscript. A.K. and R.K. analysed the samples. A.K., P.S., R.Y., and R.K. (Kumawat) did the statistical analysis of the genetic data. G.C. reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Ethical Committee of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India (Ref. No. I.Sc./ECM-XII/2018–19/06). Written informed consent was obtained for the study as per the “Declaration of Helsinki.”