RESUMEN
Haplotype diversity and allele frequencies of 23 Y chromosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci included in the next-generation PowerPlex® Y23 System were studied in 137 Bangladeshi Bengali males. A total of 134 different haplotypes were observed with a discrimination capacity (DC) of 0.978, indicating a high potential for differentiating between male individuals in this population. The highest allele frequency (0.818) was observed in locus DYS391. Locus DYS385a/b showed the highest gene diversity (0.945) while locus DYS391 showed the lowest gene diversity (0.302). Double alleles were detected in three loci. On the other hand, four null alleles were detected in a single haplotype at DYS448, DYS549, DYS392, and DYS385a/b locus, respectively. The haplotype data is available in the Y chromosome haplotype reference database under accession number YA003445. To understand the genetic diversity of Bangladeshi Bengali population, a pairwise genetic distances (Rst) was calculated by comparing with 23 population studies consisting 4249 haplotypes. The analysis placed the Bangladeshi population along with Indian Tamil and Indo-Pakistani population in a clade separated from the rest.