Allele Frequencies of the HUMTH01 Locus in the Italian Population

Summary

Human identification through DNA analysis has been revolutionized in the last years. The technique of in vitro DNA amplification using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (Mullis and Faloona, 1989) has facilitated the study of genetic variations in terms of simplicity and sensitivity (Reynold et al., 1991).

Microsatellites, stably inherited short runs of tandemly repeated nucleotide sequences (STRs), are a rich source of higly polymorphic markers in Human population and easily detecte by PCR.

Very recently, a new dimension in DNA typing analysis was opened with the development of instruments for automated analysis of fluorescent amplification products.

STR systems were evaluated from Foumey R. and Fregeau G. J. (1993) for sensitivity and accurancy using the Gene Scanner and compared to other DNA typing methods currently in use. Their results strongly indicate that excellent precision and accurancy can be obtained using non-denaturing gel systems with the added advantage that the majority of STR fragments can be more rapidly resolved because of increased electrophoretic migration.

We report DNA typing of the tetrameric repeat (AATG) STRs HUMTH01 mapped to chromosomal locus 11.p. 15. 5 (Edwa ids A. et. al., 1991) with fluorescent STR primers. The objective of the project is to establish the TH01 allelic frequencies in the Italian population by comparing unrelated individuals selected from northern Italy (100 samples) to the whole Italian population (100 samples). We have found any significant allele variations in our comparision of northern Italians to rest of Italian population.