Inference of human geographic origins using Alu insertion polymorphisms.
The inference of an individual's geographic ancestry or origin can be critical in narrowing the field of potential suspects in a criminal investigation. Most current technologies rely on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes to accomplish this task. However, SNPs can introduce homoplasy into an analysis since they can be identical-by-state. We introduce the use of insertion polymorphisms based on short interspersed elements (SINEs) as a potential alternative to SNPs. SINE polymorphisms are identical-by-descent, essentially homoplasy-free, and inexpensive to genotype using a variety of approaches. Herein, we present results of a blind study using 100 Alu insertion polymorphisms to infer the geographic ancestry of 18 unknown individuals from a variety of geographic locations. Using a Structure analysis of the Alu insertion polymorphism-based genotypes, we were able to correctly infer the geographic affiliation of all 18 unknown human individuals with high levels of confidence. This technique to infer the geographic affiliation of unknown human DNA samples will be a useful tool in forensic genomics.
Ray
David A
DA
Department of Biological Sciences, Biological Computation and Visualization Center, Louisiana State University, 202 Life Sciences Building, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
Walker
Jerilyn A
JA
Hall
Ashley
A
Llewellyn
Barbara
B
Ballantyne
Jack
J
Christian
Allen T
AT
Turteltaub
Kenneth
K
Batzer
Mark A
MA
D020087:Alu Elements; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting / Q000379:methods*; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D020071:Interspersed Repetitive Sequences; D008297:Male; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic