Study of 17 X-STRs in Native American and Mestizo populations of Central America for forensic and population purposes

International Journal of Legal Medicine (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

In the present work, an extensive analysis of the X-chromosomal pool of Native American and Mestizo groups of Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama) has been carried out. Allele and haplotype frequency databases, as well as other forensic parameters for these populations, are presented. The admixture analysis supports the tri-hybrid composition in terms of ancestry in the Mestizo populations, with a predominant Native American contribution (54–69%), followed by European (19–28%) and African contributions (12–19%). Pairwise FST genetic distances highlight the genetic proximity between the northernmost Central American populations, especially among admixed populations. The unique and complex nature of this area, where populations from different origins intercrossed, as well as the informativity of X-STR data, highpoint the great interest of this genetic study. Furthermore, the X-chromosome databases for Central American populations here provided will be not only useful for forensic and population purposes not only in the target countries but also in the host countries.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to PhD Maite Alvarez for her technical and human support provided by the DNA Bank Service (SGIker) of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, European funding: ERDF and ESF).

Funding

Funds were provided by the Basque Government (Grupo Consolidado IT998-16 and IT1271-19).

Author information

Affiliations

  1. BIOMICs Research Group, Lascaray Research Center, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain

    Miriam Baeta, Endika Prieto-Fernández, Carolina Núñez, Tamara Kleinbielen, Patricia Villaescusa, Leire Palencia-Madrid & Marian M. de Pancorbo

  2. Department of Medieval, Early Modern and American History, Faculty of Letters, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain

    Oscar Alvarez-Gila

  3. Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain

    Begoña Martínez-Jarreta

Authors
  1. Miriam Baeta
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  2. Endika Prieto-Fernández
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  3. Carolina Núñez
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  4. Tamara Kleinbielen
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  5. Patricia Villaescusa
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  9. Marian M. de Pancorbo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marian M. de Pancorbo.

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All procedures performed in the study were in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Supplementary information

Fig. S1.
figure1

Individual admixture estimation based on 17 X-STRs in Mestizo populations from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama, using STRUCTURE v2.3.4 (K=3). Native American, European, and African components are indicated in blue, red, and green, respectively. (PNG 174 kb).

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Fig. S2.
figure2

A 3D-Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling (3D-NMDS) representation of FST distances. Populations here studied: Native American (GUA_NA) and Mestizo (GUA_ME) from Guatemala; Native American (SAL_NA) and Mestizo (SAL_ME) from El Salvador; Mestizo from Nicaragua (NIC_ME) and Mestizo from Panama (PAN_ME). Other populations: Hispanics from Colombia (COL); Europeans from Spain (SPA), northern Portugal (POR), Brittany from France (BRF) and Ireland (IRE); Africans from Morocco (MOR), Tunisia (TUN), and Equatorial Guinea and Malawi (SAF). (PNG 199 kb).

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Baeta, M., Prieto-Fernández, E., Núñez, C. et al. Study of 17 X-STRs in Native American and Mestizo populations of Central America for forensic and population purposes. Int J Legal Med (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02536-9

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Keywords

  • Central America
  • Native American
  • Mestizo
  • Admixed ancestry
  • X-STRs database
  • Guatemala
  • El Salvador
  • Nicaragua
  • Panama