Springer-Verlag, Berlin/Heidelberg

Uigur Y-DNA is a real biological link into the world of Huns. Because Y-chromosome is passed from father to son without modifications, we are able to pinpoint the origin of a chromosome down to a single individual, and because Uigurs were a maternal dynastic tribe of the Huns, the Uigur women were delivering boys carrying Y-chromosome of their royal Hun father into posterity. With the relocation of the Eastern Huns to the west in the period from the 1st c. BC to the 4th c. AD, along with their Uigur counterparts, many of those Y-chromosome flowed through the Middle Asia into the Eastern Europe. Uigurs also lived in the  Middle Asia and Eastern Europe in the Early Middle Age, brought over by the activities of the First Türkic Kaganate, and once again  in the Middle Age, brought over with the Mongol invasion. The knowledge of the Eastern Turkestan Uigur Y-DNA, and their traces in Western Asia and Europe will be a powerful tool in restoring the ancient events, and hopefully we will read about them. For the history of Türkic people, there is not much deeper then the Huns at the dawn of the historical period.

In addition to the Eastern Turkestan Uigurs, China has one more group of predominantly Uigurs that they classify separately of Uigurs, partially for historical, and largely for political reasons, they are Moslem Hui, who apparently include a smattering of other ethnic groups and individuals that at different times for religious reasons joined to the body of the Moslem Uigurs.

Introduction

We analyzed 11 Y-STR loci of 107 unrelated Uigur male individuals. Research results will be based on forensic applications and population genetics in the future and enriched Chinese genetic informational resources.

Material and methods

DNA samples

The blood samples were obtained from 107 unrelated healthy male individuals of Chinese Uigur ethnic group living in Yili Uigur Ethnic Autonomous Region, Xingjiang province of China. The ethnic group is a member of a mainly agricultural Turkic people inhabiting the Xinjiang region in China and believes Islam. It has national characters and languages that affiliated the Altai phylum and Tuiki (Türkic) branch

Results and discussion

Most of the members of the Chinese Uigur ethnic group live in Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, northwest China. This region borders three Central Asian states; thus, they have many ethnical and linguistical common backgrounds. Chinese Uigur has a religion of Islam, its own language and characters were based on Arabic. According to the fifth population survey China, the population of Uigur in this region is 8,345,622 (45.21% of total). There has never been any report about Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in Chinese Uigur ethnic group until now.

Haplotype results were obtained for the 11 loci selected by the Scientific Working Group on DNA analysis methods (SWGDAM) for forensic DNA analysis. Haplotypes and gene diversity of 11 Y-STRs in Uigur ethnic group are shown in Table 1, which was designed according to Kyoung et al. [4]. A total of 103 haplotypes were identified, among which 99 were individual-specific and four haplotypes were found twice.

The haplotype diversity for 11 Y-STR loci was 0.9993.

DYS385 locus showed the highest gene diversity (0.9498), but DYS391 locus was the lowest (0.5325).

A number of 43 alleles (nine Y-STR loci) and 27 phenotypes (including DYS385) were observed in 11 Y-STR loci, with frequencies ranging from 0.0092 to 0.6296.

The allele 10 of DYS391 locus had the highest frequency (0.6296).

The four most frequent haplotypes H14 (14-13-29-24-10-11-12-13,16-10-11), H28 (16-13-29-25-10-11-13-12,13-10-10), H65 (14-14-32-23-9-13-13-12,15-9-11), and H86 (16-13-31-25-11-13-13-11,14-11-11) of this population were found in eight individuals (7.48%). We have searched these four most frequent haplotypes in the YHRD database ( http://www.yhrd.org) and found that H14 was matched with the most frequent haplotypes of central Anatolia population of Turkey (0.89%).

By the statistical method of Bonferroni's correction in ANOVA of SPSS, we have compared the data in the present study with other reported results [9-14] (Chinese, Taiwanese Han, Spanish (?), Koreans, Turkey, Chinese Mongol) and found that there were significant differences between Uigur and Han populations (p=0.047) [9], between Uigur and Spain populations (p=0.017) [11], and between Uigur and Korean populations (p=0.006) [12] (Uigur and  Chinese Mongol for some reasons not stated, must be a state secret?).

Data of Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in Chinese Uigur ethnic group are submitted to the YHRD database at http://www.yhrd.org and are in process.