Genetic polymorphism and forensic application of 23 autosomal STR loci in the Han population of Panjin City, Liaoning Province, Northeastern China

Background: Short tandem repeats (STRs) are consecutive repetition of a repeat motif and widely used in forensic medicine and human genetics because of their high polymorphism. Subjects and methods: In the current study, 23 autosomal STR loci were genotyped from 1263 unrelated healthy individuals living in Panjin City, Liaoning Province, Northeastern China using the VeriFiler (TM) Express PCR Amplification Kit. The population comparison was performed between the Panjin Han population and the other relevant groups to further explore the structure of Panjin Han and its relationship with the other groups. Results: The results found 316 alleles across the 23 STRs and the corresponding allelic frequencies ranged from 0.5198 to 0.0004. Except for D3S1358, TPOX, TH01, and D3S1358, all STR loci were highly polymorphic (PIC > 0.7), with the Penta E locus having the highest degree of polymorphism (0.9147). For population comparison, the exact test of population differentiation found that no significant difference was observed between the Panjin Han and the other Han populations, except for Guangdong Han and Jiangxi Han. Conclusion: The Panjin Han population showed significant differences with the other ethnic groups in China (Bouyei, Dong, Hui, Miao, Tibetan, and Uygur) and the foreign ethnic groups.