The genetic diversity and applicability assessment of autosomal STRs among Chinese populations by a novel Fixation Index and Nei's index

The population-specific FST in STR loci of Chinese populations has not been focused on. Here, we genotyped 19 STRs in 530 unrelated healthy individuals of Xuzhou Han population, and collected data of 30,308 samples from 32 Hans and 50 minorities nationwide. The population-specific βi and locus-specific βil were calculated to evaluate the applicable value of STRs. Next, we generated the genetic structure of various ethnic populations by Neighbor-Joining tree and Multidimensional Scaling plot based on pairwise Nei's distances. We found that TH01 and TPOX possessed high ability in discriminating populations which may be reled to the mutation rate of these STRs. Additionally, our data indicated that Chinese Han was homogenous and the population-specific βis of northern Hans were generally smaller than southern Hans (p > 0.05). We concluded that population-specific FST for autosomal STR loci could be used to reveal the unique genetic characteristics and thus uncover the genetic relationship among Chinese populations.