Mitochondrial DNA Control Region Variation from Bangladesh: Sequence Analysis for the Establishment of a Forensic Database

Abstract

Mitochondrial DNA sequences of the entire control region and three coding regions were analyzed in 108 unrelated individuals from three regions of Bangladesh. Sequence evaluation was performed with validated primers and combined sequence comparison led to the identification of 14 different haplotypes characterized by 37 variable polymorphic sites. The Bangladeshi sequences exhibited high variations and low random match probability, indicating for forensic application. The mean pairwise difference between individual was 9.698 ± 1.8658 nucleotides (95% CI 9.67 - 9.69), compared to a mean pairwise difference of 9.890 ± 4.189 nucleotides reported from Northeast Asia and suggested significant differences in the mtDNA composition of the various populations. The sequence diversity of 108 Bangladeshi Bengali samples (n = 216 chromosomes) was estimated to be 0.8475 ± 0.13406. This study first time reports that the comparison of closely related mtDNA sequences can be very useful for improving mtDNA database quality, as well as provide haplotype information for forensic study in mainstream population of Bangladesh.