Abstract: The purpose of this research was to understand the allele structure and genetic polymorphism at DXS7132, DXS6854, and GATA31E08 short tandem repeats (STRs) loci in a Korean ethnic group found in the Jilin Yanbian area, and to construct a preliminary descriptive database. The allele frequencies of the three STRs loci in 261 unrelated individuals from this ethnic group were analyzed by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and polyacrylamide gel eleetrophoresis (PAGE). The following 8, 6 and 10 alleles and 19, 17 and 21 genotypes were observed at the DXS7132, DXS6854 and GATA31E08 STR loci, respectively. All of these loci (in females) met the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P > 0.05). Statistical analysis of the three STR loci calculated the heterozygosities at 0.706, 0.743, and 0.772; the polymorphic information contents (PIC) at 0.710, 0.730 and 0.67. The female powers of discrimination (PD) were 0.898, 0.911 and 0.857. The mals genetic diversity of the male samples were 0.766, 0.802 and 0.734, and the combined haplotype diversity was more than 0.988. All of these results show that all three of the loci in this study were found to have high heterozygosity and polymorphic information content, and thus, they could provide useful genetic markers. These results could serve as valuable data to enrich the Korean ethnic group genetic database and play an important role in application and understanding of Chinese population genetics.

Key words: Korean ethnic group; Short tandem repeat; DXS7132; DX6854; GATA31E08