Analysis of the South Australian Aboriginal population using the Global AIMs Nano ancestry test. (July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hopkins, Catherine; Taylor, Duncan; Hill, Kelly; Henry, Julianne
• Is Part Of: Forensic science international. Volume 41(2019)
• Page Start: 34
• Page End: 41
• Publication Date: 2019-07
• Subjects: Global AIMs Nano -- Australian Aboriginal -- SNP profile -- Ancestry informative markers; Forensic genetics -- Periodicals; Génétique légale -- Périodiques; Forensic genetics; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 614.1
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2019.03.020
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1872-4973

Abstract

Highlights: 97 Australian Aboriginals were profiled using 31 ancestry –informative SNP markers. Australian Aboriginality was based on self-declaration. The Aboriginal group overlapped with European and Oceanic groups. There was limited ability to distinguish Aboriginal ancestry at the regional level. There was limited success in distinguishing Aboriginals from worldwide populations. Abstract: We investigate the ability of the 31 SNP loci in the Global AIMs Nano set to distinguish self-declared Australian Aboriginal individuals from European, Oceanic, African, Native American and East Asian populations. Human evolution suggests that Australian Aboriginal individuals came to Australia approximately 50 000 years ago, during the time it made up part of Sahul. Since then the colonisation of Australia by Europeans has meant significant admixture within the Australian Aboriginal population. These two events present themselves in our study with the Aboriginal population creating a continuous genetic cline between the Oceanic and European groups. We also assigned the Aboriginal individuals into their traditional regional groups to determine whether there was any ability to distinguish these from each other. We found similar results to studies using other markers, namely that the more remote regions (that have been less affected by admixture) diverged from the rest. Overall, we found the ability of the GNano system to differentiate self-declared Australian Aboriginal individuals was reasonable but had limitations that need to be recognised if these assignments are applied to unknown individuals.