| Popis: |
Present-day Croatia, a country of Southeastern Europe, is characterized by homogenous ethnic composition and complex demographic history. In order to evaluate Croatian maternal lineages and to establish the national forensic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) reference database, complete control region (CR) sequences were obtained from 200 randomly selected individuals. In total, 156 different haplotypes were found, which represent a haplotype diversity of 0.9984 and a random match probability of 0.66%. Moreover, Croatian mitochondrial pool is defined by Westeurasian lineages, except for one sample classified into East Asian lineage A. The most common haplogroups were H (25.5%), U (22%), followed by T (10%), K, J, R (7.5% each) and HV (6%), which accounted for almost 90% of the total variability. Results confirmed the hypothesis that mtDNA profiles of Croats resemble those of their geographical neighbors. Besides population genetic studies, the dataset will be used in mtDNA applications in forensic and missing persons casework. |
