Announcement of Population Data Allele frequencies of 23 autosomal short tandem repeat loci in the Philippine population Jae Joseph Russell Beltran Rodriguez a,b , Jazelyn M. Salvador a , Gayvelline C. Calacal a , Rita P. Laude b , Maria Corazon A. De Ungria a,⇑ a DNA Analysis Laboratory, Natural Sciences Research Institute, College of Science, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines b Genetics and Molecular Biology Division, Institute of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines article info Article history: Received 6 June 2014 Received in revised form 20 February 2015 Accepted 23 February 2015 Available online xxxx Keywords: Short tandem repeat Allele frequency Population database Philippines PowerPlex Ò 21 system Verifiler™ direct PCR amplification kit abstract We characterized diversity and forensic descriptive parameters of 23 autosomal STR loci (CSF1PO, D13S317, D16S539, D5S818, D7S820, TPOX, D18S51, D21S11, D3S1358, D8S1179, FGA, TH01, vWA, D1S1656, D10S1248, D12S391, D2S441, D22S1045, D19S433, D2S1338, D6S1043, Penta D and Penta E) among 167 unrelated Filipinos. The most variable autosomal STR loci observed is Penta E (observed heterozygosity: 0.9222, match probability: 0.0167). Results reveal matching probability of 8.21 Â 10 À28 for 23 autosomal STR loci. This dataset for the Philippine population may now be used in evaluating the weight of DNA evidence for forensic applications such as in human identification, parentage/kinship testing, and interpretation of DNA mixtures. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Population: A total of 167 unrelated Filipino male individuals residing in the National Capital Region and its surrounding urban area, whose self-ascribed origins are from different parts of the archipelago, provided DNA samples with free and prior informed consent. Samples were collected in accordance with the ethical guidelines stipulated by the University of the Philippines Manila Research Ethics Board (UPM-REB). Sample collection and DNA typing: Blood samples from volun- teers were collected by licensed medical personnel and transferred onto Whatman™ FTA™ Classic Card (GE Healthcare, UK). For each sample, a 1.2 mm diameter disc was directly amplified using half- volume and full-volume reactions of PowerPlex Ò 21 System (Promega, USA) and Verifiler™ Direct PCR Amplification Kit (Life Technologies, USA), respectively. The Verifiler™ Direct PCR Amplification Kit used in the study was provided to the laboratory for b-testing. PCR amplification was carried out using Applied Biosystems Ò GeneAmp Ò 9700 (Life Technologies, USA). Amplified fragments were separated and detected using the Applied Biosystems Ò 3500 Genetic Analyzer 8-capillary array system (Life Technologies, USA), and analyzed with GeneMapper Ò ID-X soft- ware version 1.2 (Life Technologies, USA) following the prescribed PowerPlex Ò 21 [1] and Verifiler TM Direct protocols [2]. Analysis of data: Allele frequencies and forensic descriptive statistics namely, matching probability (MP), polymorphic informa- tion content (PIC), and power of exclusion (PE) of each of the 23 autosomal STR loci were calculated using PowerStats version 12 [3]. Exact tests for Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) at 1,000,000 steps of Markov chain, and estimation of observed heterozygosity (Ho) and expected heterozygosity (He) were performed using Arlequin version 3.5.1.3 [4]. Pairwise genetic dis- tances (F ST ) at all 23 STR loci among five populations namely Filipinos (this study), US Africans (n = 341), US Caucasians (n = 361), US Asians (n = 97), and US Hispanics (n = 236) [5], were also calculated using Arlequin version 3.5.1.3. The F ST distances were graphically represented through a Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) plot using GenAlEx software version 6.501 [6]. Neighbor-joining (NJ) phylogenetic method on the five populations based on Nei’s D A distance [7] was assessed through 1,000 replica- tions bootstrap analysis using PowerMarker version 3.25 [8]. A con- sensus tree was generated using the Consense program in Phylip version 3.695 [9] and visualized graphically using TreeView X [10]. Results: The Philippine population data was generated using two different commercial multiplex systems (PowerPlex Ò 21 and Verifiler™ Direct) with six overlapping autosomal STR loci namely TH01, D1S1656, D2S1338, D12S391, D19S433 and D6S1043. Concordant results were observed between the two multiplex systems. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.legalmed.2015.02.005 1344-6223/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: mariadeungria@gmail.com (M.C.A. De Ungria). Legal Medicine xxx (2015) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Legal Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/legalmed Please cite this article in press as: Rodriguez JJRB et al. Allele frequencies of 23 autosomal short tandem repeat loci in the Philippine population. Leg Med (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.legalmed.2015.02.005