Genetic analysis of the SNPforID 34-plex ancestry informative SNP panel in Tunisian and Libyan populations

Abstract

A total of 149 unrelated and healthy individuals comprising: Tunisian Berbers, Tunisians with Andalusian origin and Libyans were typed with the SNPforID 34-plex ancestry informative marker (AIM) SNP panel. Results of 31 of the 34 SNPs are presented and no deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were observed after Bonferroni correction (p = 0.00161) except rs722098 (p = 0.0000). Comparisons of allele frequencies showed high divergence values between North Africans and Europeans (δ > 30%) in markers: rs4540055 (allele A) and rs16891982. Our study adds data that can be used as training set genotypes for future ancestry investigations in forensic cases and suggests these AIM-SNPs can successfully differentiate North Africans and Mediterranean Europeans. © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.