Genetic profile characterization of 10 X-STRs in four populations of the southeastern region of Brazil

Ten X-chromosomal short tandem repeats (DXS8378, DXS9902, DXS7132, DXS9898, DXS6809, DXS6789, DXS7133, GATA172D05, GATA31E08 and DXS7423) were analyzed in four populations of the southeastern region of Brazil (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Vitoria and Belo Horizonte). No deviations from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were observed for any of the analyzed loci in the four populations. The average diversity per locus varied between 68% for DXS8378, DXS7133, and DXS7423 and 83%, for DXS6809, with Rio de Janeiro being the most diverse population. Overall power of discrimination values in females varied between 0.99999999990 and 0.99999999997 and between 0.9999991 and 0.9999995 in males. These high values show the potential of this system for forensic application and relationships testing in the studied groups. Genetic comparisons (exact tests of population differentiation and pairwise genetic distances) revealed significant differences between Brazilian and other populations from Europe, Latin America and Africa, as well as among different Brazilian populations.