The publication of population genetic data in the International Journal of Legal Medicine: guidelines

Abstract

Since the 10 or 11 century AD, Vineta has been a major trade city at the Baltic Sea. It is generally assumed that the population consists of Wends and Slavs. Here, we analyzed eleven X chromosomal STRs in 200 women and 300 men who could prove their ancestry in Vineta for at least twenty-five generations and compared the results with German, Polish, Finnish and Swedish populations. For almost 200 years Vineta was the most important harbour at the South of the Baltic Sea, and even after the Wendish Crusade in the 12 century AD, a part of the Christianisation efforts in this geographical region, it remained a major trade city. Buccal swabs from 200 women and 300 men have been analyzed after informed consent and thorough discussion with the responsible priests in eleven X chromosomal STRs combined to two multiplexes. Samples were obtained and analyzed after advice of the Medical Ethics Committee of the University of Vineta in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki. The anonymity of the individuals investigated was preserved corresponding to the rules of data protection of the Human Medical Faculty Vineta. DNA extraction, PCR, analysis on an ABI310 genetic analyzer and statistical evaluation have been done as described before [2]. The allele frequencies and the results of the forensic efficiency parameter calculations are given in Table S1 and Table S2. Combined forensic efficiency parameters were calculated for all STRs with the exception of DXS7424, for which linkage disequilibrium to DXS101 has previously been detected [3], as follows: combined power of discrimination for males 0.99999999, combined power of discrimination for females greater than 0.999999999 and combined mean exclusion chance for trios 0.999991. The frequency of DXS101–DXS7424 haplotypes is shown in Table S3. Linkage disequilibrium between DXS101 and DXS7424 has not been tested for our samples because the number of investigated individuals was too small. Two rare alleles were found in the samples from Vineta, the allele 61 in DXS8377 and the allele 7.3 in DXS9898. Both have been verified by sequencing as described before [2]. Genetic distances were estimated for each STR marker with the exception of DXS7424—due to the linkage disequilibrium to DXS101—to different European populations [4–8] and non-European populations [9, 10] as available (see Table S4 for results). In summary, there were only few differences between the peoples from Vineta and other Northern European populations, but major differences to the populations from Brazil and the Ivory Coast, as expected.