Contribute

Preconditions

If you wish to publish your population data in a journal and in the YHRD and a YHRD accession number for publication is requested, we need information on the competence and proficiency of your lab concerning Y chromosome typing. You have different options:

  1. Please follow the current guidelines and recommendations and adopt requirements stated there (like informed consent and approval by an ethics committee: Gusmão et al. 2006 [PubMed] [DOI], Parson and Roewer 2010 [PubMed] [DOI], Carracedo et al. 2013 [PubMed] [DOI] and D’Amato et al. 2020 [PubMed] [DOI]. You will need those informations later on.

  2. You have already passed a forensic proficiency test which includes YSTRs (e.g. GEDNAP, GHEP-ISFG, GITAD, CTS, SERI, IQAS or others). If you have not yet participated in a forensic proficiency test, please see the following links to get started:
  3. A laboratory accreditation certificate stating the labs competence in forensic DNA typing methods issued by a national accreditation service.

  4. Whether you belong to an academic institution or to a forensic laboratory we require original electropherograms (epg) in order to guarantee the quality and concordance of the analysis method. The files must be provided electronically in an initial step (see below). The minimum requirements are:
    • an epg (PDF file) with the positive kit control (PTC)
    • an epg (PDF file) with the negative kit control (NTC)
    • an epg (PDF file) with the full allelic ladder provided by the kit supplier

You or your lab has to analyze the population samples and have the right to submit/publish the data. It is not possible to submit data of another lab or collected data found somewhere on the internet.

Data preparation

  1. When you prepare population data for submission/publication, please make sure your submissions comply with Gusmão et al. 2006 [PubMed] [DOI], Parson and Roewer 2010 [PubMed] [DOI], Carracedo et al. 2013 [PubMed] [DOI] and D’Amato et al. 2020 [PubMed] [DOI]. Informed consent and an approval of a recognized ethical committee are required for all data. We reserve the right to verify compliance with these guidelines at any time. We consider compliance to be met when a reference to a peer-reviewed publication is provided.

  2. Check your population data-format using the YHRD Data File Validator and review all failures, errors and warnings. You are welcome to use our example file to prepare your submission file.

  3. Please make sure that your submission table(s) has no gaps and all alleles for the concerned haplotype format are unequivocally called. In case of gaps (e.g. due to degradation or insufficient DNA quantity) the haplotype will be skipped or reduced to the next lower resolution format. Please use the following notation of non-standard alleles:
    • Null allele = 0
    • intermediate allele = x.1, x.2, x.3 and so on
    • alleles at multi-copy loci = x,y or x,y,z and so on; please use only length information not peak height or area for your judgement; an exception is DYS385ab where at least two alleles need to be entered (e.g. “14” will be denoted as “14, 14”)
  4. Please make sure that your data do not include any ID numbers or other information relating to an identified or identifiable person. Do not keep lists which link the transmitted haplotypes with ID numbers or other information relating to an identified or identifiable person.

Procedure

  1. Please send an email to with the following data and information:
    • Your certificate of a passed forensic proficiency test which includes YSTRs (GEDNAP, GHEP-ISFG, GITAD, CTS, SERI, IQAS and maybe others) and/or a laboratory accreditation document
    • In case of already published population data, attach your publication or provide a link
    • Information on your population data:
      • Corresponding author (and coautors if any)
      • Corresponding authors institution, address, email and phone and/or fax number
      • Description of the population including geographic positioning (latitude/longitude), language and/or ethnic group if available
      • Please provide information/confirmation on non-standard alleles (easily tracked if you are using the YHRD Data File Validator)
      • provide a reference to a publication (PubMed PMID or DOI) covering the data submitted or provide a link to a preprint version of your article (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv or medRxiv)
      • provide a blank informed consent form used in your study (if applicable) and provide information on the approval of your study by a ethics board, committee or organization
  2. You’ll receive an invitation and a link to submit your data by email. Please follow the steps and review all information given there until your file has been uploaded successfully.

  3. Please make sure that your data do not include any ID numbers or other information relating to an identified or identifiable person before you submit it.

  4. While submitting your data electronically, you have to confirm that:
    • you agree with the population designator (name) and geographic positioning (latitude/longitude)
    • you have the right to submit this data
    • your, your colleages and your laboratory does not keep lists which link the transmitted haplotypes with ID numbers or other information relating to an identified or identifiable person.
  5. As soon as the next release of the YHRD is published, you’ll be notified.

Bugs, Issues & Suggestions for Improvement

If you feel that you’ve found a bug or that a certain feature is missing or could be improved, please send a detailed email to Sascha Willuweit () describing your thoughts. We’ll come back to you. But be aware that we’re focusing mostly on forensic users, meaning that fetching observed haplotype frequencies and derived values measuring the rareness is the main purpose here.

* See FAQ/Glossary (http://yhrd.org/pages/faq) for further explanations of abbreviated terms used here