Study on SNP polymorphism of mitochondrial DNA D-loop region from Nu ethnic population in Yunnan of China

Objective: To investigate the mitochondrial single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of Chinese Nu ethnic population from Yunnan region of China and to provide basic database for ethnic origin investigation and forensic purpose. Methods: Genomic DNA from the whole blood of 87 unrelated individuals was extracted by standard chelex-100. The sequence polymorphism was analyzed by PCR-based assay and using ABI 3730 Analyzer to detect many number of relatively common point mutations. Results: Sixty-two SNP loci were observed among them with 492 point mutations and 59 haploids identified in mitochondrial DNA hypervariable region I (mtDNA HVS I). The gene diversity was estimated to be 0.9675, and the random match probability was calculated to be 0.0437. Conclusion: The result suggests that mtDNA HVS I SNP database of Nu ethnic population can be a useful tool for forensic identity and original research.