An investigation of 21 insertion deletion markers in United Arab Emirates population

Ancestry informative markers (AIMs) are considered a useful tool for forensic investigation as it might give a clue about an unknown stain donor with an absence of DNA profile match or suspects. Recently, a multiplex assay (21plex) has been developed to amplify 21 ancestry informative insertion/deletion markers (InDels) simultaneously. In the current study we present a validation study of the 21plex assay and analysis of these markers in 95 samples from United Arab Emirates (UAE) Arab population. A comparison analysis with previously published data for the HGDP-CEPH sample set is presented. Results demonstrate the usefulness of using these markers in estimating ancestry proportions in this population as well as show the accuracy of classification compared to the global data set. Forensic parameters were determined for the UAE population using Arlequin v3.5 software