[The utility of the 16 Y-STRS markers in the central Poland population]

Haplotype and allele frequencies for the panel of 16 Y-chromosome STR loci, namely DYS19, DYS385, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635 and Y GATA-H4 were determined in a population sample of 250 unrelated males from the central region of Poland. The 238 different haplotypes were identified, of which 227 haplotypes were unique, 10 were duplicated and one haplotype was shared between three unrelated men. The average gene diversity was 0.5995, combined gene diversity was 0.9998 and probability that two randomly chosen haplotypes are different in the population was 0.9996. Interpopulation comparisons revealed that Polish population is homogeneous within the three compared samples, while it differs statistically significantly from other population samples apart from Spanish population. This seems to be the first report showing the analysis of the molecular genetic distance between the population of Poland and other European and world populations for the panel of 16 Y-chromosome STR loci. The analyzed set of Y-STR markers is very useful in forensic casework to identify males and trace paternal lineages.