A Colombian Caribbean population study of 16 Y-chromosome STR loci.

Allelic frequencies and haplotypic composition of 305 male unrelated individuals from the Caribbean Colombian states of Atlántico, Bolívar, Cesar, Córdoba, Guajira, Magdalena and Sucre, were determined using 16 Y-chromosome STR loci. Two hundred and ninety three (293) haplotypes were identified, of which 283 were unique and the other 10 were found twice or thrice in the Caribbean population tested. Haplotypic diversity surpassed the values obtained in other populations, ranging from 99.66% in the population of Sucre to 99.99% in the population of Córdoba. We also calculated the overall haplotypic diversity (99.97%) and the discrimination power of these haplotypes (96.1%) in these groups. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) for 10 Colombian and Spanish populations (3139 haplotypes) reveals low differentiation between the Colombian populations of mainly European descent and large distance to Afroamerican populations living in Colombia.