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.