Highly discriminatory capacity of the PowerPlex® Y23 System for the study of isolated populations

In order to evaluate the forensic utility of the new PowerPlex® Y23 System, two Northern Spanish populations, the autochthonous Basque Country (N = 105) and Cantabria (N = 98), were typed. Two of the new markers incorporated in the panel, the rapid mutating loci DYS576 and DYS570, were among the most discriminative markers in both population datasets. In terms of the analysis of 23 Y-STRs, the two populations showed high haplotype diversities, with values slightly superior in the population of Cantabria (1 ± 0.0015) than in the Basque Country (0.9987 ± 0.0016). The comparison of the discrimination capacity obtained with the analysis of 23 Y-STRs and other available markers sets of 12 Y-STRs (PowerPlex® Y System) or 17 Y-STRs (YFiler™), clearly demonstrated an improvement in the population of the Basque Country. Nevertheless, in Cantabria this augment was only seen when the number of markers was increased from 12 to 23, since the study of 17 Y-STRs was enough to differentiate all haplotypes. Therefore, this study shows that the improvement in forensic parameters by increasing the number of Y-STR markers analyzed is much more pronounced in the case of isolated populations such as the autochthonous population of the Basque Country, as it facilitates the differentiation among similar haplotypes. Moreover, by the use of the PowerPlex® Y23 identification of population specific haplotypes increased in both populations. Ultimately, the analysis of 23 Y-STRs differentiated among the two geographically close populations of Basque Country and Cantabria. Indeed it showed significant differences between the Basque Country population and all European populations included, meanwhile Cantabria did exhibit significant proximity with the Iberian and the majority of European populations considered.