Sequence polymorphism of mitochondrial D-loop DNA in the Taiwanese Han population

In order to demonstrate the sequence diversity of mitochondrial D-loop DNA in the Taiwanese Han population, we established a database of 155 unrelated individuals. For each individual, the complete 980bp DNA region from the 5' end of HVI to 3' end of HVII segment was sequenced. In these 155 sequence data, 149 different haplotypes were observed, amongst these haplotypes, 144 were unique, 4 were found in 2 individuals and 1 was found in 3 individuals. When compare to the Anderson sequence, 144 transitions, 24 transversions, 5 insertions and 5 deletions were found. Eight positions exhibited more than one polymorphic sequence, six exhibited two variants while two exhibited three variants. Over the 1024bp that was analysed, pairwise differences between the sequences were 11.35+/-3.53bp. The sequence and nucleotide diversity were 0.9994 and 0.0116, respectively. The probability of two individuals randomly matching over the entire control region was 0.007. The diversity in the mitochondrial D-loop indicates the value of this locus for casework within Taiwan.