Analysis of Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphism in Kelantan Malays / Nur Haslindawaty Abd Rashid, Sundararajula Panneerchelvam and Zafarina Zainuddin

The study of genealogy through matrilineal lineages offers great information on tracing the origin of a race. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) as a bioenergetics cell has a unique characteristics such as maternal inheritance, lack of recombination, higher rate of mutation and high copy number per cell over nuclear DNA, which provides great discrimination in tracing population migration over a period of time. In this study, we have examined the genetic variation of the Malay population in Peninsular Malaysia, including the Kelantan Malays. The mtDNA control region, which is the non-coding entity, was PCR amplified and sequenced in order to detect the presence of polymorphism. Restriction fragment length polymorphism was carried out using different endonucleases for the mtDNA coding region to define the main specific haplogroups. The results showed that the Kelantan Malays have high genetic diversity with 76 haplotypes were resolved from 79 individuals. The presence of Mongoloid markers (26.58%) namely M7clc, F, M-C and M-D along with Polynesian motifs (16217T-C and 16261C-T) and indigenous haplogroups (R11, N21, N22, M21a, M21b, M21d, M45, M45a and M46) showed that the Kelantan Malays are having high affinity towards the Proto-Malay lineage as well as intermixture from various lineages in the past.