Abstract
Y chromosome short tandem repeat (Y-STR) loci are important genetic markers for forensic biological evidence analyses. However, paternal inheritance, reduced effective population size, and lack of independence between loci can reduce Y-STR diversity and may yield greater population substructure effects on a locus-by-locus basis compared with the autosomal STR loci. Population studies are necessary to assess the genetic variation of forensically relevant markers so that proper inferences can be made about the rarity of DNA profiles. This study examined 16 Y-STRs in three sampled populations of Native Americans from Alaska: Inupiat, Yupik, and Athabaskan. Population genetic and statistical issues addressed were: (1) the degree of diversity at locus and haplotype levels, (2) determination of the loci that contribute more so to haplotype diversity, and (3) the effects of population substructure on forensic statistical calculations of the rarity of a Y-STR profile. All three population samples were highly polymorphic at the haplotype level for the 16 Y-STR markers; however, the Native Americans demonstrated reduced genetic diversity compared with major US populations. The degree of substructure indicated that the three populations were related and admixed in terms of paternal lineage. The examination of more polymorphic loci may be needed to increase the power of discrimination of Y-STR systems in these populations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Huntley K, Long J (2005) Gene flow across linguistic boundaries in Native North American populations. PNAS 102:1312–1317
Budowle B, Chidambaram A, Strickland L, Beheim C, Taft G, Chakraborty R (2002) Population studies on three Native Alaska population groups using STR loci. Forensic Sci Int 129:51–57
Burch ES Jr (1979) Indians and Eskimos in North Alaska, 1816–1977: a study in changing ethnic relations. Arct Anthropol 16(2):123–151
Hammond HA, Jin L, Zhong Y, Caskey CK, Chakraborty R (1994) Evaluation of 13 short tandem repeat loci for use in personal identification application. Am J Hum Genet 55(1):175–189
Szathmary E (1993) Genetics of aboriginal North Americans. Evol Anthropol 1(6):202–220
Hallenberg C, Tomas C, Simonsen B, Morling N (2009) Y-chromosome STR haplotypes in males from Greenland. Forensic Sci Int Genet 3(4):e145–e146
Bosch E, Calafell F, Rosser Z, Nǿrby S, Lynnerup N, Hurles M, Jobling M (2003) High level of male-biased Scandinavian admixture in Greenlandic Inuit shown by Y-chromosomal analysis. Hum Genet 112:353–363
Budowle B, Adamowicz M, Aranda X, Barna C, Chakraborty R, Eisenberg AJ, Frappier R, Gross AM, Lee HS, Milne S, Prinz M, Saldanha G, Krenke BE (2005) Twelve short tandem repeat loci Y chromosome haplotypes: genetic analysis on populations residing in North America. Forensic Sci Int 150(1):1–15
Budowle B, Ge J, Chakraborty R (2007) Basic principles for estimating the rarity of Y-STR haplotypes derived from forensic evidence. Eighteenth International Symposium on Human Identification 2007, Promega Corporation, Madison, Wisconsin. Available from: http://www.promega.com/ussymp18proc/default.htm
Budowle B, Ge J, Aranda X, Planz J, Eisenberg A, Chakraborty R (2009) Texas population substructure and its impact on estimating the rarity of Y-STR haplotypes from DNA evidence. J Forensic Sci 54(5):1016–1021
Budowle B, Ge J, Aranda X, Low J, Lai C, Yee WH, Law G, Tan WF, Chang YM, Perumal R, Keat PY, Mizuno N, Kasai K, Sekiguchi K, Chakraborty R (2009) The effects of Asian population substructure on Y-STR forensic analyses. Leg Med 11:64–69
Weir BS, Cockerham CC (1984) Estimating F-statistics for the analysis of population structure. Evolution 38:1358–1370
Nei M (1975) Molecular population genetics and evolution. North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp 149–150
Slatkin M (1995) A measure of population subdivision based on microsatellite allele frequencies. Genetics 139:457–462
Matlab. Available from: http://www.mathworks.com/help/toolbox/stats/cmdscale.html. Accessed on 10 Feb 2011
Ge J, Budowle B, Planz J, Eisenberg A, Ballantyne J, Chakraborty R (2010) US forensic Y chromosome short tandem repeats database. Leg Med 12(6):289–295
National Research Council (1996) The evaluation of forensic DNA evidence. National Academy Press, Washington
Balding DJ, Nichols RA (1994) DNA profile match probability calculation: how to allow for population stratification, relatedness, database selection and single bands. Forensic Sci Int 64:125–140
Ballantyne KN, Goedbloed M, Fang R, Schaap O, Lao O, Wollstein A, Choi Y, van Duijn K, Vermeulen M, Brauer S, Decorte R, Poetsch M, von Wurmb-Schwark N, de Knijff P, Labuda D, Vézina H, Knoblauch H, Lessig R, Roewer L, Ploski R, Dobosz T, Henke L, Henke J, Furtado MR, Kayser M (2010) Mutability of Y-chromosomal microsatellites: rates, characteristics, molecular bases, and forensic implications. Am J Hum Genet 87(3):341–353
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Supplementary Table 1
(XLS 102 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Davis, C., Ge, J., Chidambaram, A. et al. Y-STR loci diversity in native Alaskan populations. Int J Legal Med 125, 559–563 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-011-0568-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-011-0568-3