DEVELOPMENT OF A DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC-ACID (DNA) RESTRICTION-FRAGMENT-LENGTH-POLYMORPHISM (RFLP) DATABASE FOR PUNJABIS IN EAST PUNJAB, INDIA

In response to continuing interest in obtaining reference deoxyribonuc leic acid (DNA) analysis data for previously unstudied population grou ps, blood samples were collected from Punjabi individuals living in Ea st Punjab, India. This first segment of our research is focused on res triction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis, with future seg ments anticipated for various polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based te chniques. In this study, the samples were subjected to RFLP analysis u sing HaeIII, followed by hybridization with variable number tandem rep eat (VNTR) probes for loci D2S44, D1S7, D10S28, D4S139, D17S79 and D5S 110. The band sizes of the resulting patterns were estimated using an FBI imaging system. The resulting data were subjected to statistical a nalysis for conformity with Hardy-Weinberg expectations, first for the total population of Punjabis, and additionally for the subgroups of S ikhs and Hindus. The loci are highly polymorphic in all sample populat ions studied. Except for D5S110, there is no evidence for departure fr om Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) for the VNTR loci in the populatio n groups. In addition, there is little evidence of correlation between the alleles at any of the pairs of loci and no evidence of associatio n across the six loci. Finally, the data suggest that a multiple locus VNTR profile would be rare in the Punjabi or either of its subgroups.