Sousse, Tunisia: tumultuous history and high Y-STR diversity.

In the present study, 17 Y-chromosomal STR (Y-STR) loci were typed in 218 unrelated males from Sousse, Central-East Tunisia, to evaluate forensic and population genetic applications of the data. A total of 154 different haplotypes were identified, 127 (82.5%) of which were unique, with the most frequent haplotype occurring in 14 individuals (6.4%). The locus diversity ranged from 0.2050 at DYS392 to 0.8760 at DYS385. The haplotype diversity at the 17-loci resolution was calculated to be 0.9916, while the corresponding values for the extended (11 loci) and minimal (9 loci) haplotypes were estimated at 0.9735 and 0.9710, respectively. Comparison with 29 regional and global populations using correspondence analysis, neighbor joining (NJ) tree, and Rst genetic distance revealed that the Sousse population is highly diverse. This finding is consistent with historical data. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate a distinct genetic substructure among Tunisian populations. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that the 17 Y-STRs analyzed are highly informative for individual identification, parentage analysis, and population genetic studies.