Genetic structure and forensic characteristics of Saraiki population from Southern Punjab, Pakistan, revealed by 20 Y-chromosomal STRs.

Pakistan harbors more than 18 major ethnic groups which speak 60 different languages. People speaking Saraiki languages are known as Saraiki or Multani. They are mainly residents of Southern Punjab including Multan, Dear Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, and Rahim Yar khan. Here, we reported the data of 20 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (Y-STRs) genotyped with the Goldeneye® 20Y kit in 154 unrelated Saraiki individuals. We observed 141 different haplotypes on 20 Y-STR loci and the gene diversity (GD) ranged from 0.6566 (DYS448) to 0.9538 (DYS385a, b). The overall haplotype diversity was 0.9989 at 20 Y-STRs loci. Furthermore, we performed population genetic analyses by including data from 26 other South Asian populations. The presented haplotype data was recently included in the Y-Chromosome Haplotype Reference Database (YHRD) for future forensic and other usage.