How much more should the Y-STR Haplotype Reference Database increase to reach a pragmatic saturation level?

Abstract

Empirical saturation curves can be a valuable tool for estimation of sampling effort required to detect an adequate number of Y-STR haplotypes, since they are independent of theoretical models. Nevertheless, they were shown to be highly dependent on current sample size, as detected when applied to the study of the Y-STR Haplotype Reference Database, at a European scale. The influence of geography on sampling saturation was difficult to evaluate due to high heterogeneity of the sample sizes in the database, but at the European level, it is probably very slight. Concerning the present status of the database, it is expected that a fivefold increase in the sample size of the database (up to 60,000 individuals) will reveal twice the current number of haplotypes (11,308 haplotypes), reaching a pragmatic saturation level of 5% (that is, when along with a sample increment of M individuals, no more than 0.05× M “new” haplotypes are added).