Short tandem repeat (STR) loci are the traditional markers used for kinship, missing persons, and direct comparison human identity testing. These markers hold considerable value due to their highly polymorphic nature, amplicon size, and ability to be multiplexed; however, many STRs are still too large for use in analysis of highly degraded DNA. Small bi-allelic polymorphisms, such as insertions/deletions (INDELs), may be better suited for analyzing compromised samples, and their allele size differences are amenable to analysis by capillary electrophoresis. The INDEL marker allelic states range in size from two to six base pairs, enabling small amplicon size. In addition, heterozygote balance may be increased by minimizing preferential amplification of the smaller allele, as is more common with STR markers. Multiplexing a large number of INDELs allows for generating panels with high discrimination power. The current study's application enabled the discovery of unique allelic variants, which increased the discrimination power and decreased the single-locus random match probabilities (RMPs) of 22 of these well-characterized INDELs, which can be considered as microhaplotypes. These findings suggest that additional microhaplotypes containing human identification (HID) INDELs may exist elsewhere in the genome. (Publisher abstract modified)
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