title: Y-chromosomal microsatellite diversity in three culturally defined regions of historical Tibet.
abstract: In the present study, we analyzed 17 Y-STR loci in 350 Tibetan males from three culturally defined regions of historical Tibet: Amdo (88), Kham (109) and U-Tsang (153). A total of 299 haplotypes were observed, 272 (90.9%) of which were unique. Only one Y-STR profile is shared across the three Tibetan groups and, incidentally, is also the most frequent haplotype (4.0%), represented by two, five and seven individuals from U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo, respectively. The overall haplotype diversity for the three Tibetan populations at 17 Y-STR loci was 0.9978 and the corresponding values for the extended (11-loci) and minimal (9-loci) haplotypes were 0.9935 and 0.9909, respectively. Both neighbor-joining and Rst pairwise analyses suggest a close genetic relationship between the Amdo and Kham populations, while U-Tsang is genetically distinct from the aforementioned groups. The results demonstrate that the 17 Y-STR loci analyzed are highly polymorphic in all three Tibetan populations examined and hence useful for forensic cases, paternity testing and population genetic studies.
authors: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, College of Medicine, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA.
authors: Tenzin
authors: T
authors: Gayden
authors: Areej
authors: A
authors: Bukhari
authors: Shilpa
authors: S
authors: Chennakrishnaiah
authors: Oliver
authors: O
authors: Stojkovic
authors: Rene J
authors: RJ
authors: Herrera
mesh_terms: D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics*; D005787:Gene Frequency; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D010802:Phylogeny; D018609:Tibet