Y-STR haplotypes and the genetic structure from eight Chinese ethnic populations

To investigate the genetic structure of 8 Chinese ethnic populations, haplotype data of 9 short tandem repeats (STR) loci on non-recombining region of the Y chromosome (NRY) from 1816 individuals of 12 populations was obtained from the Database of Genome Diversity and Variation for Chinese Populations (HGD-Chn), unpublished data from Key Laboratory of Forensic Sciences and the prior literature. No specific Chinese population groups could be identified through the analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) based on Y-chromosomal STRs from these samples. Pairwising F_ST and Nei's genetic distance values were calculated and significant heterogeneity among these populations were observed. The phylogenetic trees were attained based on both the Nei's genetic and pairwising F_ST values, and pairwising F_ST based multidimensional scaling plot was also obtained. Several genetic features were observed through the analysis above, and it indicated some further cultural, religious and geographic significance.