Research article
Peruvian genetic structure and their impact in the identification of Andean missing persons: A perspective from Ayacucho

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Abstract

In the process of identifying around 15,000 missing persons by the armed violence in Peru (1980–2000), the major problem is the high probability of random matches in especial of Andean Ayacucho population which represents the largest number of missing persons. To that end, in a first analysis, we analyzed the relationships and genetic structure in 880 individuals from 20 regions of Peru (including Ayacucho) with IDENTIFILER Kit and in a second analysis; we studied 203 individuals of Ayacucho using the ARGUS-X and ESSPLEX_SE Kit with the aim to confirm the intrapopulation structure found in the first analysis. In the first analysis using the delta–mu parameter, clearly shows three genetic groups at the national level (North, Central and South) with a low variability among groups but significative with AMOVA (0.47%** (P < 0.01)). In the tree, Ayacucho population is located in the south group and interestingly showed a significative FIS (0.10** (P < 0.01)). The second analysis confirm this FIS but lowest (FIS = 0.06) and this FIS could be explained by the evidence of a recent bottleneck found under the IAM, SMM and TPM models (P < 0.01). On the other hand, the X-STR show low probability of random match than in Autosomic STR which may be related to content of admixture among native and foreign populations (30% foreign content in Peruvian population). The results in this study are consistent with the demographic history (processes of migration, immigration, inbreeding), which contribute to the increase of IBDs and may be related to the random match DNA identification.

Introduction

In Peru, since 1980–2000, we lived a period of violence with thousands of missing persons. In this context, there are about 15,000 missing persons and the largest percentages of this correspond to Ayacucho (south-central area of Peru). It all started on the one hand, the social and political change through armed struggle as part of extremist ideologies and even messianic rebel groups, and the other by the State's response in order to suppress terrorism.

Identification process is complex because in the DNA identification process, we observed in the some Ayacucho cases random matches among unrelated individuals and the factor of limited number of relatives samples because some relatives are dead or also they are missing persons. In this context, we need to know the genetic structure and the relationship within and between these Peruvian populations and also in this way we could explain in Ayacucho population the causes of these random matches and have a good criteria to estimate de significance of our matches among remains and relatives databases.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

The study involved the analysis of population genetic structure in 880 individuals corresponding to 20 of the 24 departments of Peru, including the department of Ayacucho. These populations were analyzed for 15 autosomal STR markers AMPFℓSTR Kit Identifiler in order to understand the relationships between the Peruvian populations and the possibility of population genetic groups in Peru. Also to know more deeply the genetic structure in Ayacucho population, we analyzed in 203 individuals, 16

Results and discussion

The analysis of delta–mu in Peruvian populations show three clusters (Fig. 1). The degree of differentiation in these three groups was low but significant between groups in the AMOVA analysis (0.47%** (P < 0.01)). These differences were similar to those found in other populations such as those found in population of Finland [1]. It is interesting to note that the clustering obtained have correlation to the linguistic division proposed for the Peruvian population [2], where there are a Central

Role of funding

The research was conducted with funding from the Public Ministry and Qiagen support.

Conflict of interest

None.

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