Evaluation of 30 insertion/deletion polymorphisms as forensic markers in the Kuwaiti population

Insertion/deletion (indel) polymorphism markers have been developed as a supplementary genotyping system in forensic DNA testing. The only commercial indel genotyping kit is the Qiagen Investigator® DIPplex kit, which includes 30 loci that can be typed using PCR-capillary electrophoresis (PCR-CE). We show that these 30 markers can be used to genetically assign Kuwaiti individuals to their population of origin when compared to other distant populations, using principal components analysis (PCA) and STRUCTURE. We also demonstrate a relationship between geographic and genetic distance using allele frequencies for the 30 markers from 26 populations.