Population genetic evaluation of 12 X-chromosomal short tandem repeats of Investigator Argus X-12 kit in North-East Italy

Abstract

Short tandem repeats (STRs) located on X chromosome are suitable in complex kinship cases when analysis performed using only autosomal loci does not provide informative results. In this work we evaluated the distribution of 12 X-STRs (DXS10103, DXS8378, DXS7132, DXS10134, DXS10074, DXS10101, DXS10135, DXS7423, DXS10146, DXS10079, HPRTB, DXS10148) using Investigator Argus X-12 PCR Amplification kit in a population sample of 207 unrelated healthy individuals (89 females and 118 males) living in North-East Italy. Allele frequencies and parameters of forensic interest were calculated for the twelve X-STRs. Some new microvariant and rare alleles in the loci DXS10148, DXS10101, DXS10079 have been detected. The Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) of the 12 X-STRs ranged from 0.642 (DXS8378) to 0.942 (DXS10135).