Abstract: To investigate the distribution of three short tandem repeat ( STR) loci in the Miao ethnic group of the Guangxi Rongshui. We collected sodium-citrated blood specimens from 208 ( male 102, female 106) healthy unrelated Miao individuals in Guangxi Rongshui, and used the pheno-l chloroform method to extract DNA. By using theAmpF
STR IdentifilerTM PCR Amplification Kit and 3100 Genetic Analyzer, 19 alleles and 48 genotypes of three STR were observed. The allele frequency and genotype frequency were 0.002 4 - 0.466 3 and 0.004 8-0.317 3, respectively. The expected and observed genotype distributions of three loci according to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was given at P > 0.05. Genetic distance with 3 STR data showed that therewere significant differences between Guangxi Rongshui Miao national minorities with American Caucasians and American Blacks. There was little difference between Guangxi Rongshui Miao national minorities and the Guangxi Dong.

Key words: Short tandem repeat; Gene frequency; Genetic distance; Miao ethnic group