OBJECTIVETo investigate the distribution of the polymorphism of the Y-chromosomal loci DYS438, DYS439, GATA A7.1 and GATA A7.2 among Han population in Hebei province.

METHODSWith the use of PCR followed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and silver staining, the allele frequencies of these loci in 164 unrelated men of Han population were investigated.

RESULTSFour, five, five, four alleles were observed at the loci DYS438, DYS439, GATA A7.1 and GATA A7.2 respectively; the frequencies of these alleles ranged from 0.0359 to 0.6587, from 0.0179 to 0.4107, from 0.0122 to 0.4146 and from 0.0476 to 0.5238 respectively; the probability discrimination of these loci were 0.5121, 0.6811, 0.6679 and 0.6327 respectively. Seventy different haplotypes were found at these loci. Thirty-six different haplotypes appeared only once. The power of discrimination of these four loci was 0.9480.

CONCLUSIONThe results demonstrate that these loci(DYS438, DYS439, GATA A7.1 and GATA A7.2) are good genetic markers with high determination power and can be applied to individual identification, especially in paternity test and the detection of mixed samples.