Y-chromosomal Short Tandem Repeat Variation in Kurd, Assyrian, and Armenian populations in Iraq Kurdistan

Abstract

Background and objectives: North central Middle Eastern countries Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria all
have persistent Kurdish regions. Over thousands of years, several ethnicities have immigrated,
settled, or resided in the region, including Turks, Persians, Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians,
Chechens, and Azeris. The aim of the present study is to use a set of Y-STR to characterize the
genetic structure of the Kurd, Assyrian, and Armenian population and build a phylogenetic tree among
them.
Methods: Eleven Y-chromosome STRs were evaluated in a total of 90 unrelated males from the
Kurds, Armenians, and Assyrians populations in the Kurdistan region of Iraq (DYS19, DYS390,
DYS393, DYS426, DYS437, DYS439, DYS447, DYS460, DYS461, DYS481, and DYS576). Using a DNA
extraction kit, total DNA was isolated from leukocytes. PCR products were run on 8% polyacrylamide
gel with a 50bp ladder as DNA marker to size the bands, and silver staining was used to identify the
DNA bands. Power Marker V3.25 software was used to determine variety of genetic parameters,
including total allele number, allele frequency, gene diversity, polymorphic information content (PIC),
and phylogenetic tree was constructed by MEGA-X software.
Results: The total number of alleles identified in the three populations was 380. The sizes of the
alleles ranged from 87bp to 275bp.The most diverse loci were DYS447 and DYS576 (GD: 0.949),
whereas DYS426 showed the least diversity (GD:0.896). The Phylogenetic tree divided the populations
into two main clusters; The Kurdish and Armenian clades in one cluster and the Assyrian in another
cluster. Few of dendrogram leaves from the three examined groups were admixed with each other.
Conclusions: This study confirms the high-resolution Y-STR typing's ability to discriminate. It
concludes that the genetic distance between Kurd and Armenians is less than the genetic distance
between the Kurd and the Assyrians, meaning that the Armenians population are genetically closer to
the Kurds population.