Abstract
Aim: To evaluate the novel triplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for the analysis of polymorphic Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat loci (Y-STR). Methods: A total of 14 Y-STR loci was analyzed. Allele frequencies for 3 tetrameric Y-STR loci (DYS449, DYS456, and DYS458) and extended haplotype loci typed by Y-PLEXTM 12 system were investigated in a sample of 50 unrelated healthy Czech male donors. We computed the relevant intra-population statistic parameters for our data (gene diversity, average gene diversity over loci, and mean number of pairwise differences) and compared our sample set with other Central European populations using RST pairwise genetic distance. Results: We focused on the comparison of genetic diversity between the Y-STR extended haplotype loci and that of the 3 additional loci, and on the benefit of using DYS449, DYS456, and DYS458 in forensic and population genetics applications. Total gene diversity in our sample set was 0.998367 when using all 14 loci. Our data analysis revealed very high genetic diversity at DYS449 locus (0.876735), which surpasses even the diversity at DYS385a/b (0.819592). Population comparison showed no difference between Czech, Bavarian, Austrian, and Saxon sample set. A minor difference was found between Czech and Polish sample set. Conclusion: Typing of 3 Y-chromosomal microsatellite polymorphisms may provide a useful complement to already established sets of Y-STRs.