Genetic variation and population structure of Sudanese populations as indicated by 15 Identifiler sequence-tagged repeat (STR) loci

We report the genotypes of the 15 Identifiler microsatellite markers for 498 individuals from 18 Sudanese populations representing different ethnic and linguistic groups. The combined power of exclusion (PE) was 0.9999981, and the combined match probability was 1 in 7.4 × 1017. The genotype data from the Sudanese populations was combined with previously published genotype data from Egypt, Somalia and the Karamoja population from Uganda. The Somali population was found to be genetically distinct from the other northeast African populations. Individuals from northern Sudan clustered together with those from Egypt, and individuals from southern Sudan clustered with those from the Karamoja population. The similarity of the Nubian and Egyptian populations suggest that migration, potentially bidirectional, occurred along the Nile river Valley, which is consistent with the historical evidence for long-term interactions between Egypt and Nubia.We show that despite the levels of population structure in Sudan, standard forensic summary statistics are robust tools for personal identification and parentage analysis in Sudan. Although some patterns of population structure can be revealed with 15 microsatellites, a much larger set of genetic markers is needed to detect fine-scale population structure in east Africa and the Nile Valley.Sudan is located in northeastern Africa, with a total of 133 living languages listed by Ethnologue [1]. Local languages belong to three of the major African linguistic families proposed by Greenberg [2]: the Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic language families. The considerable ethnic and cultural diversity within Sudan make the study of existing genetic diversity of human populations an attractive effort. The Nile Valley has a long history of succession of different groups, coupled with demographic and migration events, which remain to be fully examined on a genetic level. These groups include people with an established history in the area,