Genetic variation at nine short tandem repeat loci among islanders of the eastern Adriatic coast of Croatia.
We have analyzed the extent of genetic variation at nine autosomal short tandem repeat loci (D3S1358, VWA, FGA, TH01, TPOX, CSF1PO, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820) among six populations from Croatia: five distributed in the islands of the eastern Adriatic coast and one from the mainland. The purpose is to investigate the usefulness of these loci in detecting regional genetic differentiation in the studied populations. Significant heterogeneity among the island and mainland populations is revealed in the distributions of allele frequencies; however, the absolute magnitude of the coefficient of gene differentiation is small but significant. The summary measures of genetic variation, namely, heterozygosity, number of alleles, and allele size variance, do not indicate reduced genetic variation in the island populations compared to the mainland population. In contrast to the two measures of genetic variation, allele size variance and within-locus heterozygosity, the imbalance index (beta) indicates evidence of recent expansion of population sizes in all islands and in the mainland. High mutation rates of the studied loci together with local drift effects are likely explanations for interisland genetic variation and the observed lack of reduced genetic diversity among the island populations.
Institute for Anthropological Research, Amruseva 8, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
Irena Martinović
IM
Klarić
Marijana
M
Pericić
Lovorka Barać
LB
Lauc
Branka
B
Janićijević
Milovan
M
Kubat
Dino
D
Pavicić
Igor
I
Rudan
Ning
N
Wang
Lin
L
Jin
Ranajit
R
Chakraborty
Ranjan
R
Deka
Pavao
P
Rudan
D000483:Alleles; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D017523:Croatia; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D020080:Tandem Repeat Sequences / Q000235:genetics*