Genetic polymorphism analysis of 15 STR loci in Chinese Hui ethnic group residing in Qinghai province of China

In the present study, we investigated the diversity distributions of allelic frequencies of 15 short tandem repeats (STRs) loci in a sample of Chinese Hui ethnic group in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The allelic frequencies of the 15 STR loci (D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818 and FGA) were obtained from 2975 unrelated healthy Hui individuals. The STR genotyping data of all the samples were generated by DNA extraction, multiple amplification, GeneScan and genotype analysis. The genetic distances among different populations were calculated by using Nei’s method and a phylogenetic tree was constructed based on the allelic frequencies of the same 15 STR loci using the neighbor-joining method. A total of 185 alleles were observed in the Hui population, with the corresponding allelic frequencies ranging from 0.0002 to 0.5322. Chi-Square tests showed that all STR loci were in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. The forensic statistical parameters of all the loci showed high values. The population data in this study were compared with the previously published population data from other ethnics or areas. The Hui population showed significant differences from the Minnan Han, Uigur, Ewenki, Yi, Tibetan, Maonan and Malay ethnic minority groups in some loci, and from the South Morocco population and the Moroccan population in all the loci. Our results are valuable for human individual identification and paternity testing in the Chinese Hui population and are expected to enrich the genetic information resources of Chinese populations.