D1S80 LOCUS VARIABILITY IN 3 BRAZILIAN ETHNIC-GROUPS

We have studied the hypervariable locus D1S80 in 75 white and 53 black Brazilians from Porto Alegre, a southern Brazilian population, and in 50 Brazilian Indians from the Xavante and Zoro tribes. Allele frequen cies were significantly different among the three ethnic groups, mainl y because of the higher frequencies of alleles 21, *22, *28, and *34 and the lower frequency of allele 18 in individuals of African ancest ry and the higher frequencies of alleles 18 and *30 in Brazilian Indi ans. In the Indian group a restriction in the number of alleles (7) an d genotypes (15) was found. The data suggest that the D1S80 locus is a useful interpopulation marker. This is the first report of its allele frequencies in Amerindians.