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Differential pre‐amplification of STR loci for fragmented forensic DNA profiling
Author(s) -
Ham SeonKyu,
Kim SeYong,
Seo Bo Young,
Woo KwangMan,
Lee SeungHwan,
Choi Cheol Yong
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
electrophoresis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.666
H-Index - 158
eISSN - 1522-2683
pISSN - 0173-0835
DOI - 10.1002/elps.201500478
Subject(s) - dna profiling , amplicon , str analysis , microsatellite , biology , str multiplex system , forensic identification , primer (cosmetics) , genetics , polymerase chain reaction , dna , computational biology , gene , chemistry , allele , organic chemistry
DNA profiling of short tandem repeats (STR) has been successfully used for the identification of individuals in forensic samples, accidents and natural disasters. However, STR profiling of DNA isolated from old crime scenes and damaged biological samples is difficult due to DNA degradation and fragmentation. Here, we show that pre‐amplification of STR loci using biotinylated primers for the STR loci is an efficient strategy to obtain STR profiling results from fragmented forensic samples. Analysis of STR loci with longer amplicon sizes is generally hampered, since these relatively long loci are vulnerable to DNA fragmentation. This problem was overcome by using reduced or increased primer concentrations for loci with shorter or longer amplicon sizes, respectively, in our pre‐amplification strategy. In addition, pre‐amplification of STR loci into two groups of short or long amplicon size increases the efficiency of STR profiling from highly fragmented forensic DNA samples. Therefore, differential pre‐amplification of STR loci is an effective way to obtain DNA profiling results from fragmented forensic samples.