Patterns of Y-STR Variation in Italy

• NCJ Number: 240803
• Journal: Forensic Science International: Genetics Volume: 6 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2012 Pages: 834-839
• Author(s): F. Brisighelli; A. Blanco-Verea; I. Boschi; P. Garagnani; V.L. Pascali; A. Carracedo; C. Capelli; A. Salas
• Date Published: December 2012
• Length: 6 pages
• Grant Number(s): SAF2008-02971; SAF2011-26983
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)

Annotation

The 17 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) included in the AmpFlSTR Yfiler Amplification Kit (AB Applied Biosystems) (DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS385ab, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635 and GATA H4.1) were typed in 292 samples from 7 Italian regions.

Abstract

Population comparisons with other European samples were undertaken; for this purpose, 2 databases were collated from the literature: (a) 19 population samples including greater than 2,900 Yfiler profiles, and (b) 67 population samples including greater than 15,000 minimum haplotype profiles. A total of 276 different Yfiler haplotypes were observed in Italy, and only one of them was shared among 7 population samples. The overall haplotype diversity (0.9996) was comparable to other European samples. AMOVA indicates that among population variance depends on the amount of Y-STRs used, being higher when using minimal haplotypes. This is probably due to the fact that Yfiler profiles are represented by singleton haplotypes in all the population samples raising the diversity values to the maximum theoretical value. AMOVA results seems to depend even more strongly on the amount of population samples used, the among population variance in Italy ranging from 2.82 percent to 11.03 percent (using 15 and 32 Italian populations samples, respectively). Variance is not as strongly stratified geographically within Italy, although it is notorious that latitude is more important than longitude in the distribution of variance. The results also indicated that Italy is less stratified than other European samples. The present study contributes to enrich the Y-chromosome databases regarding high-resolution Y-chromosome data sets and demonstrates that extended Y-STR profiles substantially increases the discriminatory capacity in individual identification for forensic purposes. (Published Abstract)