Polymorphism of the mitochondrial DNA control region in Italians

Mitochondrial DNA sequences of the hypervariable regions HVI and HVII were analysed in 83 Caucasians living in central Italy to expand the database for forensic identification purposes, and 75 different haplotypes resulting from 62 polymorphic positions in HVI and 44 in HVII were observed. The most frequent haplotype (263G, 309.1C, 315.1C) was shared by 7 individuals, 2 haplotypes were shared by 2 individuals, and 72 were unique. The genetic diversity was found to be 0.99 and the random match probability 1.9%. A condition of sequence heteroplasmy was found in only one case at nt 16311, whereas a length heteroplasmy was found in the homopolymeric stretch of cytosines 303-315. Our results indicate that in direct sequencing beyond the poly-cytosine stretch, the overlap is due to length heteroplasmy, whereas the blurred signal occurs when the stretch is composed of more than 10 cytosines.