Validation study and population data of 15 "new" STR loci: A highly discriminating set for paternity and kinship analysis

Abstract

We investigated 15 polymorphic STR loci (D1S1656, D7S1517, D8S306, D8S639, D9S304, D10S2325, D11S488, D12S391, D14S608, D16S3253, D17S976, D18S1270, D19S253, D20S161, D21S1437) which are not included in the standard sets of forensic loci (ISSOL, CODIS). The markers were selected according to the complexity of the polymorphic region: 7 of the 15 investigated loci showed a simple repeat structure (D9S304, D10S2325, D14S608, D16S3253, D18S1270, D19S253, D21S1437), 3 loci (D7S1517, D12S391, D20S161) consisted of compound repeat units and 5 loci (D1S1656, D8S306, D8S639, D11S488, D17S976) showed a complex and hypervariable polymorphic region. A population study on a sample of 270 unrelated west Eurasian persons from Austria was carried out. We did not observe significant deviation from Hardy-Weinberg expectations. The combined PE for the 15 loci was 0.99999998. In combination with the traditional set of STR markers included in commercially available kits (no linkage was observed between these 15 loci and the PowerplexTM 16 System loci) these markers approve as highly discriminating forensic tool, also suitable for the analysis of difficult paternity and kinship constellations. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.