Genetic investigation of Chinese she ethnic based on autosomal STRs and X-STRs

The She ethnic is a large minority in China with approximately 700,000 individuals. For more than one thousand years, they mainly resided in Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. To obtain a better understanding of the genetic background of She, we investigate 21 autosomal STRs (A-STRs) and 16 X-STRs in 296 unrelated healthy individuals from Zhejiang She population. Allele frequencies and forensic parameters prove these markers are useful for forensic application. We also investigate the genetic background with the two types of markers. Nei genetic distances between She and Eastern Han population are always the lowest, regardless of the markers used for analysis. Although the tested STRs are located on different chromosomes with different inheritance laws, A-STRs and X-STRs provided in general congruent phylogenetic signal and similar cluster among compared groups. These results demonstrated that geographic isolation and interactions play significant roles in differentiation of genetic constitution of ethnic groups.