Population genetics of 17 Y-STR markers in Turkish Cypriots from Cyprus

We analyzed seventeen Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) [DYS456, DYS389I, DYS390, DYS389II, DYS458, DYS19, DYS385a/b, DYS393, DYS391, DYS439, DYS635, DYS392, Y-GATA-H4, DYS437, DYS438, and DYS448] in 253 unrelated, male individuals from the Turkish Cypriot population of the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. While 206 out of the 253 haplotypes present in the dataset were unique, there are also 22 haplotypes that were observed in two individuals each, and 1 haplotype that was observed in three individuals. While no locus duplications or null alleles were observed in our dataset, we have detected 43 allelic variants in total, the majority of which (25 out of 253 haplotypes or 9.88%) comprised of .2 intermediate variants at the DYS458 locus (alleles 16.2, 17.2, 18.2, 19.2, and 20.2). For the 229 different haplotypes observed in the Turkish Cypriot dataset, the calculated discrimination capacity (DC) was 0.9051 and the haplotype diversity (HD) was 0.9992. The calculated average gene diversity (GD) values ranged from 0.3828 to 0.9631 for the DYS392 and DYS385a/b loci, respectively. Pairwise genetic distance comparisons of the Turkish Cypriot Y-STR dataset with those from the neighbouring (Turkey, Greece, Israel/Palestinian Authority area, Egypt and Italy) and relatively distant (Lithuania, Taiwan and Australia) countries through the use of analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) and multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analyses confirmed that our data do not deviate significantly from the typical core haplotypes of the Eastern Mediterranean region. The Turkish Cypriot Y-STR haplotype dataset will find an immediate use in the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus Project on the "Exhumation, Identification and Return of Remains of Missing Persons" and it is also expected to contribute to the establishment of forensic genetic services in North Cyprus.