Forensic characteristics and phylogenetic analysis of two Han populations from the southern coastal regions of China using 27 Y-STR loci

Currently, the largest national database within the Y-STR Haplotype Reference Database (YHRD, https://yhrd.org, release 55) is China, which has a very large Y-STR haplotype profiles. However, no haplotype data was available for Hainan province, the smallest and southernmost province of China. Herein, 280 unrelated male Chinese Han individuals residing in Hainan province were recruited and genotyped with 27 Y-STR loci. Moreover, 136 Han individuals from Shenzhen, the largest migrant city in China, also investigated. 279 distinct haplotypes were obtained in the Hainan Han individuals with the overall haplotype diversity (HD) and discrimination capacity (DC) were 0.999974 and 0.9964, respectively. 136 unique haplotypes were observed in the Shenzhen individuals, and thus both of the related HD and DC values were 1.0. The two multi-copy loci (DYS385a/b and DYF387S1a/b) and rapidly mutating Y-STRs (RM Y-STRs, DYS449, DYS518, DYS570, DYS576, DYS627) exhibited high genetic diversity (GD) values (GD > 0.7) in two Han populations. Furthermore, genetic relationships along Chinese administrative and ethnic divisions were analyzed, and we also combined our data with existing datasets of non-Chinese groups to explore the genetic variance. Genetic differentiations were observed between Northern and Southern Han nationality, and genetic differences existed between the two Han populations and some ethnic groups, most prominently for the Tibetans and Kazakhs, as well as non-Chinese groups, especially African groups.