Genetic data and de novo mutation rates in father-son pairs of 23 Y-STR loci in Southern Brazil population

We evaluated haplotype and allele frequencies, as well as statistical forensic parameters, for 23 Y-chromosome short tandem repeats (STRs) loci of the PowerPlexA (R) Y23 system (DYS19, DYS385a/b, DYS389I/II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635, Y-GATA-H4, DYS481, DYS533, DYS549, DYS570, DYS576, DYS643) in a sample of 150 apparently healthy males, resident in South Brazil. A total of 150 different haplotypes were identified. The highest gene diversity (GD) was observed for the single locus marker DYS570 (GD = 0.7888) and for a two-locus system DYS385 (GD = 0.9009). We also examined 150 father-son pairs by the same system, and a total of 13 mutations were identified in the 3450 father-son allelic transfers, with an overall mutation rate across the 23 loci of 3.768 x 10(-3) (95 % CI: 3.542 x 10(-3) to 3.944 x 10(-3)). In all cases there was only one locus mutated with gain/loss of repeats in the son (5 one-repeat gains, and 7 one-repeat and 1 two-repeat losses); we observed no instances of mutations involving a non-integral number of repeats.