OBJECTIVETo investigate the mitochondrial single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)of Chinese Nu ethnic population from Yunnan region of China and to provide basic database for ethnic origin investigation and forensic purpose.

METHODSGenomic DNA from the whole blood of 87 unrelated individuals was extracted by standard chelex-100. The sequence polymorphism was analyzed by PCR-based assay and using ABI 3730 Analyzer to detect many number of relatively common point mutations.

RESULTSSixty-two SNP loci were observed among them with 492 point mutations and 59 haploids identified in mitochondrial DNA hypervariable region I (mtDNA HVSI). The gene diversity was estimated to be 0.9675,and the random match probability was calculated to be 0.0437.

CONCLUSIONThe result suggests that mtDNA HVSISNP database of Nu ethnic population can be a useful tool for forensic identity and original research.