Search

The aim of this study was to initiate the collecting of hypervariable DNA polymorphisms data in the Croatian population, as it has already been done in some other populations worldwide. Two VNTR loci, D7S22 and D12S11, were studied in the sample of 30 inhabitants of the eastern region of the island of Hvar. The binned allele frequencydistribution of D12S11 was compared to the ones reported for nine other world populations. The cluster analysis showed that the population of the island of Hvar was joined to the cluster constructed by the analysed European and North American populations, to which the Asian and Afro-Caribbean populations were joined later on. The factor analysis divided the American and European populations (including the analysed Hvar population) from the Afro-Caribbean and Asian populations. The results of the factor analysis, when shown in two-dimensionsl discriminate space determined by two extracted principal components, revealed that the Croatian population was much closer to the European and the U.S. Caucasian populations.