Genomic Diversity in Three Populations of West Bengal, India, Using 15 Autosomal Forensically Informative STR Markers

Abstract Aims and Objectives: The plan of study was the evaluation of genetic diversity in the tribal populations of Northern West Bengal, tribal populations of southern West Bengal and the Muslim population of West Bengal, India, using 15 autosomal STR markers. Further investigation was done to find out the genetic relatedness of the studied populations with other previously documented Indian populations. Result: The studied tribal population of Northern West Bengal and Southern West Bengal showed a wide range of observed heterozygosity values, viz, from 0.667 to 0.878 and 0.699 to 0.863 respectively. Same was the case with the tribal population of Southern Bengal where the observed heterozygosity values ranged between 0.699 to 0.863. For the Muslim population the observed heterozygosity value was in the range of 0.742 to 0. 885.The combined value of non-exclusion probability for all the studied loci was 0.00000550 for the tribal population of Northern West Bengal, 0.00004445 for the Muslim population of West Bengal and 0.00000806 for the tribal population of Southern West Bengal. The neighbor joining (NJ) tree and principal component analysis (PCA) resulted in the clustering of our studied populations with other previously studied Indian populations. Conclusion: The data thus obtained demonstrated high forensic efficacy and will be therefore helpful in several population genetics studies and forensic applications.