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A single nucleotide polymorphism panel for individual identification and ancestry assignment in Caucasians and four East and Southeast Asian populations using a machine learning classifier

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Abstract

Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) profiling is an effective means of individual identification and ancestry inferences in forensic genetics. This study established a SNP panel for the simultaneous individual identification and ancestry assignment of Caucasian and four East and Southeast Asian populations. We analyzed 220 SNPs (125 autosomal, 17 X-chromosomal, 30 Y-chromosomal, and 48 mitochondrial SNPs) of the DNA samples from 563 unrelated individuals of five populations (89 Caucasian, 234 Taiwanese Han, 90 Filipino, 79 Indonesian and 71 Vietnamese) and 18 degraded DNA samples. Informativeness for assignment (In) was used to select ancestry informative SNPs (AISNPs). A machine learning classifier, support vector machine (SVM), was used for ancestry assignment. Of the 220 SNPs, 62 were individual identification SNPs (IISNPs) (51 autosomal and 11 X-chromosomal SNPs) and 191 were AISNPs (100 autosomal, 13 X-chromosomal, 30 Y-chromosomal, and 48 mitochondrial SNPs). The 51 autosomal IISNPs offered cumulative random match probabilities (cRMPs) ranging from 1.56 × 10−21 to 3.16 × 10−22 among these five populations. Using AISNPs with the SVM, the overall accuracy rate of ancestry inference achieved in the testing dataset between Caucasian, Taiwanese Han, and Filipino populations was 88.9%, whereas it was 70.0% between Caucasians and each of the four East and Southeast Asian populations. For the 18 degraded DNA samples with incomplete profiling, the accuracy rate of ancestry assignment was 94.4%. We have developed a 220-SNP panel for simultaneous individual identification and ethnic origin differentiation between Caucasian and the four East and Southeast Asian populations. This SNP panel may assist with DNA analysis of forensic casework.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. [grant numbers NSC 100-2320-B-002-013-MY3]. The authors thank the National Center for Genome Medicine at Academia Sinica, Taiwan, for SNP genotyping technical support. This Center was supported by grants from the National Core Facility Program for Biotechnology of National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C. We also acknowledge Ms. Pi-Mei Hsu, Ms. Shwu-Fang Li for technical support on DNA extraction, and Ms. Ai-Jiun Jung for typewriting. Special thanks are given to the hundreds of individuals who volunteered to provide biological samples for allele frequency data studies.

Funding

This study was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. [grant number: NSC 100–2320-B-002-013-MY3].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department and Graduate Institute of Forensic Medicine, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Sec. 1, Jen Ai Rd, Taipei, 100, Taiwan

    Hsiao-Lin Hwa, Hsiang-I Yin, Tsui-Ting Lee & James Chun-I Lee

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, National Taiwan University Hospital, No. 7 Chung Shan S. Rd, Taipei, 100, Taiwan

    Hsiao-Lin Hwa & Ming-Yih Wu

  3. Department of Medical Genetics, National Taiwan University Hospital, No. 7 Chung Shan S. Rd, Taipei, 100, Taiwan

    Hsiao-Lin Hwa

  4. Yourgene Bioscience, No.376-5 Fuxing Rd., Shulin Dist, New Taipei City, 238, Taiwan

    Chih-Peng Lin & Wei Hsin Hsieh

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  1. Hsiao-Lin Hwa
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Correspondence to James Chun-I Lee.

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Hwa, HL., Wu, MY., Lin, CP. et al. A single nucleotide polymorphism panel for individual identification and ancestry assignment in Caucasians and four East and Southeast Asian populations using a machine learning classifier. Forensic Sci Med Pathol 15, 67–74 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-018-0071-y

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