Allelic Representation and its Effect on Genetic Variation: A Jordanian Population-based Study

Here, we report on the relationship between allelic number and percentage genotype representation at highly polymorphic human genetic loci. To achieve this goal, blood samples were collected from 450 unrelated Jordanians and analyzed using PCR-based DNA typing kits. PGR ranged from 1.0 at loci with low allelic number to <0.05 at loci with high allelic number suggesting that there is some sort of an inverse relationship between allelic number and PGR. The lowest locus-based heterozygosity was observed at the TPOX locus (0.45) while the highest was observed at the D18S51 (0.88). Heterozygosity as a measure of genetic variation among Jordanians was calculated at 0.72. No clear relationship between the number of genotypes and heterozygosity was observed at any locus; this although, heterozygosity tends to generally increase as allelic number increase. Although the PGR for highly polymorphic loci precipitously decreases as the number of alleles increase, the level of genetic variation based on PCR-based polymorphic loci remains very high.