Genetic variation and relationships at five STR loci in five distinct ethnic groups in China

Five short tandem repeat (STR) systems of TH01, vWA, LPL, F13B and FES/FPS were investigated in five ethnic groups living in China (Tujia, Miao, Bai, Chaoxian and Han). All five loci did not deviate from the Hardy-Weinberg eq uilibrium (P>0.05). At the five loci of each ethnic group, the observed het erozygosity, the mean exclusion chance (MEC), and the power of discriminati on (PD) ranged from 0.42 to 0.86, from 0.20 to 0.66 and from 0.61 to 0.95, respectively. For the five ethnic groups, the combined MEC and combined PD were >0.9360 and >0.9998, respectively, suggesting that combinations of the se five systems are feasible for DNA typing in forensic investigations such as personal identification or paternity testing. Furthermore, the allelic frequencies at the five loci suggested that these five ethnic groups were d istinctly different communities. Judging from the phylogenetic tree constru cted based on the genetic distance among the five ethnic groups, Han, Chaox ian and Tujia were involved in an identical cluster, and Miao and Bai in an other. These findings indicate that each of the five groups examined is not only a distinct community, but also has a relationship with each of the ot hers. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.