Y Chromosomal STR Locus DYS385 in Azoospermic and Fertile Men from the Aegean Region of Turkey: Is there any Forensic Relevance?

The DYS385 locus, consisting of two linked short tandem repeat (STR) subloci, is the polymorphic marker on the Y chromosome. The distribution of DYS385 genotypes was studied in 51 fertile and 49 azoospermic male individuals from the Aegean Region of Turkey. Genotype 14-17 was the most frequently observed genotype, and the gene diversity value of the Aegean population (n = 100) was 0.946 in this study. Results of the analyses show that there is a statistically significant difference between azoospermic and fertile males in terms of the DYS385 polymorphism. In addition, the results demonstrate that the DYS385 locus is very useful for human identification in forensic cases and paternity tests in the Aegean Region of Turkey.