Y-STR HAPLOTYPE OF ORANG ASLI IN TAMAN NEGARA PAHANG 11 Malays. Appl. Biol. (2015) 44(3): 11–15 * To whom correspondence should be addressed. HAPLOTYPE ANALYSES OF ORANG ASLI POPULATION IN TAMAN NEGARA PAHANG USING Y-STR MARKERS SOFIA, S.M.Y. 1 , BADRUL, M.M.Z. 2 and FARIDA, Z.M.Y. 1* 1 Faculty of Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia 2 Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor * Email: fzuraina@salam.uitm.edu.my ABSTRACT There are many maternal line studies conducted for Orang Asli using mitochondrial DNA. This study focuses on the paternal line, specifically Y-STR and three markers were considered, namely DYS19, DYS390 and DYS391. These markers were used to compare 21 subjects comprising of 7 from Senoi tribes and 14 from Negrito tribes. The samples were collected from Kampung Kuala Atok, Kg. Sungai Tiang, Kg. Dedari, Kg. Krom, Kg. Teresek and Kg. Gam located in Taman Negara Pahang and villages nearby. From these, 14 haplotypes were gained with one of it shared by both tribes while the rest were unique to the tribe. The analyses conducted from the haplotype were gene diversity (GD), locus diversity (DL), haplotype diversity (HD) and discrimination capacity (DC). From the analysis, the GD values range from 0.2480 to 0.7108 whilst the DL values range from 0.2500 to 0.7446. The haplotype diversity and discrimination capacity values were 0.8875 and 0.6364, respectively. Since this work only studied the comparison between Senoi and Negrito, further analysis is going to include the other sub tribes of Orang Asli. Key words: Orang Asli, Y-STR, DYS19, DYS390, DYS391, Senoi, Negrito INTRODUCTION The aborigines of Peninsular Malaysia, also known as Orang Asli makes up 0.5% of the total population. They are traditionally divided into three main groups which are Negrito, Senoi and Proto-Malay. Each of the tribes can be divided further into six subtribes, making a total of 18 subtribes of Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia (Nicholas, 2003). Studies from different point of views have been conducted (Lye, 2011). Some non-molecular studies include the historical approach by Bellwood and the educational feature of Orang Asli by Abdullah and colleagues (Bellwood, 1993; Abdullah et al., 2013). Molecular studies that have been done on Orang Asli populations include the work on mitochondrial DNA sequences and polymorphism (Zainuddin and Goodwin, 2004; Lim et al., 2010). However, not many studies have been done on Y-STR of Orang Asli (Alshurdin et al., 2011). Although there is lack of studies on Y-STR of aborigines in Malaysia, they are quite common worldwide. Some of the studies of Y-STR were done on local aborigines such as the Paiwan people of Taiwan, Papuans and Australian aborigines (Forster et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2011). Microsatellites are made up of repeat motifs arranged tandemly and considered to be one of the most commonly used PCR-based markers (Jarne and Lagoda, 1996). Y-STRs are microsatellites on the non-recombining region of Y chromosome that do not code for proteins (Willard, 2003). Since Y-STR escapes recombination, nucleotide differences between a father and son can only be gained through mutation (Underhill et al., 2000). Compared to recombining loci, it is important for Y-STR to be analyzed using more locus to increase discrimination capacity (Bosch et al., 2002). In this work, three markers were used namely DYS 19, DYS 390 and DYS 391 as shown in Table 1 (Butler, 2003; Schoske, 2003). These three markers were part of the SWGDAM- recommended minimal haplotype markers. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sample collection and FTA card washing The raw materials used in the study were buccal swab samples of Orang Asli. Samples were collected after ethical approval was obtained from the