Atushi Nagai, Yoshihisa Watanabe, Sadao Yamada, Yasuo Bunai, Isao Nakamura and Isao Ohya
Department of Legal Medicine, Gifu University School of Medicine, Gifu, Japan

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Population studies on four STR Loci (D18S51, D11S554, D21S11 and FGA) were carried out in a sample of unrelated Japanese individuals living in Gifu Prefecture (central region of Japan). DNA was extracted from whole blood by the phenol-chloroform method or the resin binding DNA purification method (ReadyAmp™ Genomic DNA Purification System, Promega Corporation). Texas Red-labeled PCR products of the loci were detected and analyzed on a SQ-5500-S DNA Sequencer (Hitachi Electronics Engineering) using Fluorescent Image Analysis Software FRAGLYS v. 2.0 (Hitachi Electronics Engineering).

For D18S51, 16 alleles were observed with frequencies in the range of 0.001 to 0.216 in 507 individuals. For D11S554, 17 alleles were observed with frequencies in the range of 0.003 to 0.206 in 175 individuals. For D21S11, 13 alleles were observed with frequencies in the range of 0.002 to 0.337 in 310 individuals. For FGA, 16 alleles were observed with frequencies in the range of 0.002 to 0.242 in 310 individuals. The heterozygosities were 0.856, 0.891, 0.789 and 0.845, respectively. The polymorphic information content was 0.838, 0.879, 0.759 and 0.826, respectively. The combined mean exclusion chance for these four loci was 0.992 and the combined power of discrimination was 0.999997. No significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium could be found for all loci.

The results demonstrate that D18S51, D11S54, D21S11 and FGA are useful loci for paternity testing and individual identification in the Japanese population.