STR polymorphisms in Philippine ethnolinguistic groups: evaluation of forensic utility.

Population data was collected for the STR loci F13AO1, FES/FPS, HUMvWA, and HUMTHO1, in three major Philippine ethnolinguistic groups and used to estimate statistical parameters for identity testing in forensic work on Filipinos. The Cebuano, Ilocano, and Pampango populations in the Philippines were studied because they are among the biggest linguistic groups in the country, thus their genotypic profiles should substantially represent those of many Filipinos. The number of alleles varied from 4 to 9 at all loci, falling within the range observed for other local and world populations. Pairwise comparisons of the allele frequency distributions showed no statistical differences among the populations. The test for linkage equilibrium showed no evidence of non-random association of alleles across the physically unlinked loci in any of the three populations. The four loci combined gave an exclusion power of > or =0.9995 and a power of paternity exclusion of 0.8859-0.9389.