Summary

To conduct this study 350 buccal swabs were collected from unrelated healthy, randomly selected individuals from the Kurdish population in Kurdistan region- Iraq and three minority groups (Shabak, Kakay and Yazidi). The allelic frequencies estimated for Kurdish population using 15 autosomal Short Tandem Repeat (STR) loci namely D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818, FGA and Amelogenin. The sample collected during January-March of 2016 from all provinces of Kurdistan region- Iraq and Bahirka refugee camp for minorities.

Amplification by polymerase chain reaction was performed with the AmpFlSTRIdentifiler^® Direct PCR amplification kit. The amplified products were separated and detected by ABI 3130 DNA genetic analyzer using reference-sequenced ladder.

The results show no significant departure from Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) expectations were observed in 10 from 15 STR loci analyzed (p-value >0.05). The exceptions were the CSF, D3S1358, D13S317, D16S539 and D2S1338 loci, but when the Bonferroni procedure was used as a correction for the multiple tests performed on a population sample, 14 of 15 STR loci of the previous p-values could be considered non-significant except CSF. No linkage disequilibrium was found between the loci located on the same chromosome, and they are statistically independent. The highest inbreeding coefficient (F_IS) value of the Kurdish population in Kurdistan region- Iraq has been calculated as TPOX (0.095) and the lowest value was D21S11 (-0.003). This low F_IS value indicates that the population is in random mating with high level of heterozygosity. The combined probability of exclusion, power of discrimination, probability of matching value for all the 15 STR loci were 0.99999687; 0.99999999 and 1.49 x 10^-18, respectively. We can conclude that our results of the combined 15 STR loci might consider as a vital tool for paternity testing and forensic studies for Kurds population.

posted: 19-12-2016