ISSN: 0022-1198
CODEN: JFSCA
Page Count: 10

A Comparative Study of Genetic Variation at Five VNTR Loci in Three Ethnic Groups of Houston, Texas
Sharma, BR
Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory, TX

Bolding, JR
Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory, TX

Jin, L
Stanford University Medical School, CA

Thompson, M
Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory, TX

Chakraborty, R
Center for Demographic and Population Genetics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX

Zhong, Y
Center for Demographic and Population Genetics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX

(Received 12 September 1994; accepted 1 May 1995)

Abstract

Following the technique of Southern blot restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) analysis, we generated a database of DNA profiles at five Variable Number of Tandem Repeats loci (D1S7, D2S44, D4S139, D10S28, and D17S79) for 669 individuals of three major ethnic populations (Caucasians, Blacks, and Hispanics) of Houston, Texas. Analysis of fragment sizes at these loci within each sample, as well as their fixed-bin analyses, reveal that the assumptions of independence of allelic occurrences within and between loci are valid for this database. Fixed-bin allele frequency tables, therefore, are the best descriptors of this database for conservative forensic calculations. Finally, we demonstrate that this regional database from Houston, Texas, does not yield any meaningfully different forensic inference than the one obtained from the National database of the respective ethnic groups.

Keywords:
forensic science, DNA, population studies, genetic variation, RFLP data base, Hardy Weinberg expectation, linkage equilibrium

Paper ID: JFS13860J
DOI: 10.1520/JFS13860J
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