Prognostic capacity of the HIrisPlex genetic phenotyping system in the Belarusian population

BACKGROUND : Externally visible traits such as iris and hair color are of interest in different areas of research from archeology and population genetics to forensic science. Recently a number of models have been developed to predict variants of human phenotypic traits. The most popular of them is the HIrisPlex system consisting of 24 SNPs, associated with human eyes and hair color. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used the HIrisPlex system for phenotyping of the Belarusian population. Allelic variants of the SNPs were genotyped by massive parallel sequencing. The analysis of the obtained data was performed using the free-available online resource https://HIrisPlex.erasmusmc.nl. RESULTS: The comparison of the results of genotyping with actual data showed high accuracy of the system for predicting blue and brown eye color (94.5% and 91.8% of correct predictions, respectively), and in identifying brown-haired (84.7%) and red-haired individuals (80%). The HIrisPlex system successfully predicts iris and hair color in two most numerous phenotypic groups – “brown-haired with blue eyes” (BA = 78.5%) and “brown-haired with brown eyes” (BA = 85.5%). CONCLUSION: The HIrisPlex system has a high prognostic ability for forensic DNA phenotyping in the Belarusian population. But for traits that are difficult identified, additional researchers are required.