The application of mitochondrial DNA typing to the study of white Caucasian genetic identification

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 100 unrelated British White Caucasians was extracted, amplified and directly sequenced. Sequences of approximately 800 nucleotides were obtained from 2 hypervariable segments within the non-coding region of the mitochondrial genome. A total of 91 different sequences were observed with an average nucleotide diversity of 1.1%. The most diverse pair of sequences differed at 3.6% of their nucleotide (nt) sites. Comparison to a consensus reference sequence showed that each region was polymorphic to a similar extent. Different methods of genetic analysis were used to examine the variation in each region, including pairwise comparisons, which demonstrated that although the data did not fit a Poisson distribution, the fit was closer to a Negative Binomial distribution.