Variation of 17 RFLP markers on chromosome 13 in southeastern Spain

The allele frequency distribution of 17 nuclear DNA restriction polymorphisms at 15 loci on chromosome 13 was examined in a sample of 70 unrelated autochthonous individuals from La Alpujarra rural mountainous region in Southeastern Spain. The markers typed, 14 associated with anonymous segments and three located on coding regions, constitute a subset from the battery of the nuclear RFLPs previously proposed for population studies (Bowcock et al. 1991). In our sample no Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium deviations were present and the average heterozygosity over all loci was 0.367 +/- 0.031. The significant differences for five markers observed between our sample and a Spanish Basque group underline the usefulness of this kind of DNA markers for the analysis of populations relationships even at the continental level.