THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE HLA-DQ-ALPHA ALLELES AND GENOTYPES IN THE FINNISH POPULATION AS DETERMINED BY THE USE OF DNA AMPLIFICATION AND ALLELE SPECIFIC OLIGONUCLEOTIDES

Allele and genotype frequencies for the HLA-DQ-alpha locus were determined for use in forensic analyses and paternity tests in Finland. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the reverse dot blot format were employed to detect 6 different HLA-DQ-alpha alleles. All 6 HLA-DQ-alpha alleles were detected among the 112 unrelated individuals with allele frequencies ranging from 5.8% to 32.6%. The distribution of the observed genotypes is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Additionally, this Finnish population sample is statistically similar to 2 other Caucasian sample populations. The power of discrimination of this system in the Finnish population sample is 0.92, suggesting this method may prove suitable for identification purposes.