A study of old Serbian skeletal remains using ForenSeq DNA Signature™ kit

Abstract

Recent advances in massively parallel sequencing (MPS) has become a very promising technology for forensic applications (Børsting and Morling, 2015). In this study Illumina ForenSeq™ DNA Signature Prep kit was tested to determine if MPS offers a more comprehensive evaluation of degraded samples than the traditional fragment analysis/capillary electrophoresis based method (Athey, 2006). The use of MPS could reduce the analysis time and augment the identification of human remains. In this context we aimed to analyse bone/tooth samples using ForenSeq™ DNA Signature kit. These samples were partially degraded and had given partial profiles with the GlobalFiler™ kit previously. The MPS kit showed that it was highly sensitive, aided in higher allele recovery for STR loci and provides valuable information about biogeographic ancestry, identity and phenotypic features from a single analysis. The work resulted in highly successful amplification and sequencing of 30 degraded bone/teeth samples using MPS method.