DNA Profiling in Two Alaskan Native Populations Using HLA-DQA1, PM, and D1S80 Loci

Two Native Alaskan populations were sampled and DNA profiles were generated for 201 individuals. Ninety two blood samples were collected from the North Slope Borough region of Alaska and the remaining 109 blood samples came from Native Alaskans in the Bethel and Wade Hampton areas. Allele and genotype frequencies were established for the HLA-DQA1, LDLR, GYPA, HBGG, D7S8, Gc, and D1S80 loci. Native Alaskans are slightly less polymorphic than Caucasians at the HLA-DQA1 locus. In contrast, the PM loci appear to be nearly as informative in the Native Alaskan populations as in Caucasians for identity testing. The data clearly demonstrate that all the loci tested are highly informative for the Alaskan populations and fall well within Hardy-Weinberg expectations. There is little evidence for departure from expectation of independence of alleles across loci. The data demonstrate that estimates of multiple locus profile frequencies can be obtained from Native Alaskan populations using the product rule under the assumption of independence of loci. In addition, Native Alaskan databases were more similar to each other and to other Native American databases than they were to U.S. Caucasians and African Americans.