Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) of Y-chromosome-specific microsatellites in two closely related human populations [published erratum appears in Hum Mol Genet 1997 May;6(5):828]

The analysis of seven Y-chromosome-specific microsatellite loci revealed ahigh level of polymorphism in two closely related human populations (Dutch,n = 89, and German, n = 70). Four of these loci were found to generate atleast 77 different haplotypes, only 15 of which were shared by the twopopulations. These results demonstrate that highly informative PCR-basedDNA typing of the Y chromosome is now feasible. Assuming a stepwisemutation model, a network comprising all minimum spanning evolutionarytrees connecting the haplotypes was constructed. Analysis of molecularvariance based upon this network indicated that the within-populationheterogeneity with respect to haplotype descent was significantly smallerthan the between-population heterogeneity, suggesting that males were moreclosely related to males from their own population as opposed to males fromthe other population. These findings suggest that Y-chromosomalmicrosatellites might be very useful not only for forensic purposes butalso in association studies of multifactorial traits, allowing thecharacterization of the level of genetic distinctiveness of supposedlyinbred or isolated populations and discrimination even between closelyrelated populations.