Abstract:
Allele frequencies for 15 STR autosomal loci and forensic parameters were determined for Szekler Hungarians from Covasna county and non-Szekler Hungarians represented in this study by Hungarians from Cluj county. The results confrmed the agreement with the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) for all tested loci with the exception of CSF1PO locus for Covasna county. In consequence, the tested populations are suitable for use in human identifcation and micro-population differentiation studies. During the population comparison tests, no signifcant differences were found between non-Szekler Hungarians from Cluj (CJ-Hu) and Szeklers of Covasna county (CV-Sze). None of these two populations (CJ-Hu and CV-Sze) show departures from Romanians living in Bucharest (B-Ro). Both populations (CJ-Hu and CV-Sze) show one signifcant difference when compared to Szeklers from Harghita county (HR-Sze). The tests show higher differences for CV-Sze than for CJ-Hu, when compared to Romanian populations.
This study indicates that ethnic origin should also be taken into consideration when comprehensive DNA databases are created.
