Turchi C, Stanciu F, Tagliabracci A, „mtDNA control region forensic database in the Romanian population and deep investigation of the most frequent haplotypes”, Poster at DNA in Forensics 2014. 9th Y-User Workshop and 6th EMPOP meeting. Abstract book, Brussels 14-16 mai 2014, P33, p.110.
Abstract:
Romanian population is composed of 88.92% Romanians, 6.5% Hungarians, 3.29% Roma and 1.29% other populations (2011 census). From the historical point of view Romanians are an admixture of local and surrounding populations. Romania can be ided in 4 major historical regions, each with its particular populations influence: Moldavia that during the past was the Eastern Europe border in front of Mongol, Tatar and Ottoman invasions; Transylvania, where the Austro-Hungarian Empire had an important influence; Wallachia, whose population is the result of Roman Empire conquests, the Slav migration from the north, and the Turkish south-east influence; and Dobruja, in the past conquered by Greeks, Romans, Tatars, Turks and Slavs. Previous genetic studies made on Y-STR markers suggest that the Slavic influences were dominant and from the perspective of general population (autosomal markers) the dominant influences were Slavic, Italian, Greek and Turkish; unfortunately there are limited data on mtDNA variation in the general population. In order to analyze the heterogeneity of Romanian population from a mitochondrial lineages point of view and to establish appropriate mtDNA forensic database, we generate a high-quality mtDNA control region data from a Romanian population sample. ~400 healthy Romanian donors, from different regions of the country, were subjected to control region sequence analysis. Two PCR fragments were sequenced by using ten different sequencing primers, according to forensic standards. To ensure high data quality at least a double reading of each site and an independent evaluation of electropherograms were performed. A phylogenetic approach for a posteriori analysis of the mtDNA types was applied and sequences were aligned according to the mitochondrial phylogeny. To increase the utility of mtDNA analysis in forensics, the Personal Genome Machine was used to sequence complete mtGenomes of the most common haplotypes, in order to investigate in more detail specific coding region variations.
