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Mexican mestizo population sub-structure: effects on genetic and forensic statistical parameters

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Abstract

Since Mexican mestizos are an admixed population, it is necessary to determine the effects that the substructure of the population has on genetic and forensic parameters. With this aim, a study was performed with 15 STR loci (CODIS plus D2S1338 and D19S433) on 1,640 unrelated Mexican mestizos. We determine allele and genotypic frequencies observing departure from Hardy–Weinberg expectation (12 out of 15 loci, with an excess of homozygotes, Fis > 0), as well as pairs of loci in an apparent linkage disequilibrium (13 of 92 loci). We conducted a test for genetic population stratification, the results show that the Mexican mestizo population is substructured into three subgroups, which are in HW and linkage equilibrium. The combination of the 15 loci in the whole population has high forensic efficiency with the capacity to genetically discriminate one individual in one quintillion (1/1018). Our data potentially validates the use of these 15 STR loci to establish forensic identity and parentage testing for legal purposes, and offers a powerful tool for genetic variation analysis. However, given that the population is stratified, we highly recommend applying a correction with the inbreeding coefficient in calculations of paternity and forensic studies to avoid erroneous assumptions.

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Abbreviations

STR:

Short tandem repeat

W&C:

Weir and Cockerham method (1984)

HW:

Hardy–Weinberg

HWE:

Hardy–Weinberg expectation

HWD:

Hardy–Weinberg departure

LD:

Linkage disequilibrium

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología del Distrito Federal (ICYT-DF), contract grant number: MLMM-ICYT. We thank María del Pilar Figueroa-Corona, M. Sc., Leonor C. Acosta-Saavedra, M. Sc., Pascual Francisco Lucio-Monter and Francisco J. Castañeda-Montes for technical assistance. We also thank Biología Molecular Diagnóstica S.A. de C.V. and her coworkers for helping in the logistics of sample collection and processing. In addition, we thank Laboratotrio Multidisciplinario de Investigación de la Escuela Militar de Graduados de Sanidad for logistic assistance. We thank the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and its PhD in Biomedical Ciences program for the scholarship granted to G. Noris during his undergraduate formation. Finally we wish to thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their very useful commentaries and suggestions in the writing of this paper.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest, they have no financial relationship with the organization that sponsored the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Querétaro, México

    Gino Noris & Gonzalo Martínez de la Escalera

  2. BIMODI (Biología Molecular Diagnóstica) Laboratory, Querétaro, Qro., México

    Gino Noris, Carla Santana, Rosa Quezada & Salvador Xihuitl

  3. Departamento de Biomedicina Molecular, Cinvestav-IPN, México, D.F., México

    Marco Antonio Meraz-Ríos

  4. Departamento de Genética y Biología Molecular, Cinvestav-IPN, México D.F., México

    María de Lourdes Munoz & Alvaro Díaz-Badillo

  5. Unidad de Investigación Médica en Trombosis y Aterogénesis, HGR Gabriel Mancera, IMSS#1 Carlos McGregor Sánchez Navarro, México D.F., México

    Abraham Majluf-Cruz

  6. Laboratorio de Medicina Genómica, Departamento de Genética, Instituto Nacional de Rehabilitación, Secretaría de Salud, México, D.F., México

    Jonathan J. Magaña

  7. Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Secretaría de Salud, México, D.F., México

    Julio Granados

  8. Unidad de Investigación Médica en Enfermedades Metabólicas del Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), México, D.F., México

    María Cristina Revilla

  9. Departamento de Enseñanza e Investigación, Hospital Militar Regional, Monterrey, Nuevo León, México

    Sergio Martínez-Salas

  10. Departamento de Toxicología, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (Cinvestav-IPN), Av. Instituto Politécnico Nacional 2508, Col. San Pedro Zacatenco, C.P. 07360, México D.F., México

    Emma S. Calderon-Aranda & Rocío Gómez

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  1. Gino Noris
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  2. Carla Santana
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  3. Marco Antonio Meraz-Ríos
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  4. María de Lourdes Munoz
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  5. Abraham Majluf-Cruz
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  6. Jonathan J. Magaña
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  7. Julio Granados
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  8. Rosa Quezada
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  9. María Cristina Revilla
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  10. Sergio Martínez-Salas
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  11. Salvador Xihuitl
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  12. Gonzalo Martínez de la Escalera
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  13. Alvaro Díaz-Badillo
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  14. Emma S. Calderon-Aranda
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  15. Rocío Gómez
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Correspondence to Rocío Gómez.

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Noris, G., Santana, C., Meraz-Ríos, M.A. et al. Mexican mestizo population sub-structure: effects on genetic and forensic statistical parameters. Mol Biol Rep 39, 10139–10156 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-012-1888-1

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