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Relevant for various areas of human genetics, Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (Y-STRs) are commonly used for testing close paternal relationships among individuals and populations, and for male lineage identification. However, even the widely used 17-loci Yfiler set cannot resolve individuals and populations completely. Here, 52 centers generated quality-controlled data of 13 rapidly mutating (RM) Y-STRs in 14,644 related and unrelated males from 111 worldwide populations. Strikingly, >99% of the 12,272 unrelated males were completely individualized. Haplotype diversity was extremely high (global: 0.9999985, regional: 0.99836-0.9999988). Haplotype sharing between populations was almost absent except for six (0.05%) of the 12,156 haplotypes. Haplotype sharing within populations was generally rare (0.8% nonunique haplotypes), significantly lower in urban (0.9%) than rural (2.1%) and highest in endogamous groups (14.3%). Analysis of molecular variance revealed 99.98% of variation within populations, 0.018% among populations within groups, and 0.002% among groups. Of the 2,372 newly and 156 previously typed male relative pairs, 29% were differentiated including 27% of the 2,378 father-son pairs. Relative to Yfiler, haplotype diversity was increased in 86% of the populations tested and overall male relative differentiation was raised by 23.5%. Our study demonstrates the value of RM Y-STRs in identifying and separating unrelated and related males and provides a reference database., (© 2014 The Authors. **Human Mutation published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Population genetic data of the short tandem repeat system FGA were determined by PCR analysis in two Austrian population samples, one population north of the Alps and one population south of the Alps. A total of 15 different alleles could be observed in 500 unrelated individuals. No significant differences were found between the phenotype frequencies in the two populations, as determined by R x C contingency test, so the populations could be pooled for further analysis. Both the single populations and the pooled population are in accordance with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. FGA proves to be very efficient for both stain analysis and paternity testing. The presented allele and genotype data allow the statistical interpretation of this system for Austrians.

Population genetic studies were carried out on 932 caucasians from Austria using the short tandem repeat system ACTBP2 (SEE33). A sequenced allelic ladder was used for typing (Möller et al. 1995). After native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis all 26 alleles of the ladder were found as well as 194 alleles which migrated differently from those in the ladder. Forensically relevant parameters were calculated (discrimination power: 0.989, mean exclusion chance: 0.854, observed heterozygosity 0.946). An allele consisting of 9 repeats which is not part of the allelic ladder was also found. In 692 meioses 5 mutations were found (mutation rate 0.72%).