Genetic characterisation and forensic importance of 20 Y-STRs in Han population from Anshan, Northeast of China

Abstract

Background

With a population of over 1.4 billion and 56 ethnic groups, China is the largest country in the world in terms of population. Han is the main ethnic group of China (93%).

Aim

To provide genetic data of Y chromosomal STRs from Anshan City, Northeast of China, for the first time, which will serve as a reference database for forensic and population studies.

Subjects and methods

We report data of 20 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (YSTRs) genotyped with the Goldeneye^® 20Y kit in 270 Han individuals residing in Anshan City of China.

Results

A total of 170 alleles were observed on 20 Y-STRs. The gene diversities varied from 0.3460 (DYS391) to 0.9692 (DYS385). Overall haplotype diversity was almost 1 with 261 unique haplotypes, while the discrimination capacity (DC) was 0.9814. Pairwise Rst and Fst genetic analyses, MDS plot, N-J tree and PCA showed the genetic structure of Anshan Han population was significantly different from other minority groups like Tibetans and Kazakhs.

Conclusions

Results of this study showed that Goldeneye^® 20Y system loci have strong discriminatory power in the Anshan Han population of China which makes this kit suitable for forensic applications in this ethnic group.

Keywords:

• Goldeneye^® 20Y system
• Forensic
• Han
• Anshan
• China

Ethical approval

All participants gave their informed consent in writing after the study aims and procedures were carefully explained to them in their own language. The study was approved by the ethical review board of the China Medical University, Shenyang Liaoning Province, People’s Republic of China and in accordance with the standards of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

This project is supported by China Medical University Postdoctoral research program [grant no 20191998] along with King Saud University, Deanship of Scientific Research, College of Science Research Center.

Additional information

Funding

This project is supported by China Medical University Postdoctoral research program [grant no 20191998] along with Liaoning provincial Natural Science Foundation for Doctoral studies (2020-BS-098).