About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

112 Int'l J. Legal Med. 1 (1998-1999)

handle is hein.journals/injlegame112 and id is 1 raw text is: © Springer-Verlag 1998 V. L. Pascali - M. Dobosz - B. Brinkmann Coordinating Y-chromosomal STR research for the Courts Introduction The growing interest of contemporary biology in the hu- man Y chromosome (Hammer 1995; Jobling and Tyler- Smith 1995) has extended to forensic circles. This trend emerges from a consideration of the increasing number of papers published in forensic science journals concerned in qualifying polymorphisms of human Y chromosomes as tools for molecular identification. Jobling et al. (1997) list a number of forensic issues to which the male-specific pro- files could be applied and discuss their appropriateness and suitability. In view of the inherent court application, we wish to discuss some critical aspects of this new class of DNA profiles and issue some guidelines for those researchers who are considering to prepare and submit forensic Y- STR work to the International Journal of Legal Medicine. A consensus typing scheme for male identification The perspective that male DNA profiles could become the natural counterpart of mitochondrial polymorphisms and attain the same practical success as the mtDNA control region is endorsed by the broad range of application of haploid profiles. However, many of the currently avail- able Y-profiles have a discrimination power too low for court use because researchers tend to type a small number (< 3) of STRs on a large (> 100) population sample. This strategy seems to be a relic of autosomal typing and is ob- viously of little forensic value when applied to a non-re- combining system such as the Y-chromosome. What is re- quired is extending each individual typing in the sample to as many Y loci as possible, even at the cost of typing smaller sample sizes. Eventually, these haplotype data sets will ac- cumulate into a database large enough for practical use in V. L. Pascali Forensic Genetics Unit, University of Verona, Italy M. Dobosz V. L. Pascali (®) Immunohaematology Laboratory, Istituto di Medicina Legale, University Cattolica, largo F. Vito, I-100168 Roma, Italy B. Brinkmann Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Munster, Germany the courts. Kayser et al. (1997) have already standardised genotyping procedures and proposed a practical core set of STRs for further research. We would encourage further publications complying with the proposed standards. DNA repositories Significant efforts should be devoted in constructing banks of male genomes accessible to a large circle of researchers for integration into future refinements of male haplotypes. The samples should be drawn from diverse populations, since there is growing evidence that dramatically different frequencies of haplotypes exist in different populations (Forster et al. 1998). It is evident that a publication on a new Y-locus is more informative if it is studied on previously characterised samples than on fresh samples. For example, a research group might have previously published the Kayser et al. (1997) core set of Y-STRs in certain individu- als; if they or others then describe a novel locus or novel variants of an existing locus using the published samples, they could quantify the improvement of the new locus on the haplotype resolution and present a useful new publication to the research community (cf. Cagliha et al. 1997, 1998). References Caglia A, Novelletto A, Dobosz M, Malaspina P, Ciminelli BM, Pascali VL (1997) Y-chromosome STR loci in Sardinia and continental Italy reveal islander-specific haplotypes. Eur J Hum Genet 5:288-292 Caglia A, Dobosz M, Boschi I, d'Aloja E, Pascali VL (1998) In- creased discrimination power of a Y-specific short tandem re- peat haplotype by addition of the highly polymorphic DYS385 locus. Int J Legal Med (in press) Forster P, Kayser M, Meyer E, Roewer L, Pfeiffer H, Benkmann H, Brinkmann B (1998) Mol Biol Evol, in press Hammer MF (1995) A recent common ancestry for human Y chro- mosomes. Nature 378:376-378 Jobling MA, Tyler-Smith C(1995) Fathers and sons: the Y chro- mosome and human evolution. Trends Genet 11:449-456 Jobling MA, Pandya A, Tyler-Smith C (1997) The Y chromosome in forensic analysis and paternity testing. Int J Legal Med 110: 118-124 Kayser M, Caglia A, Corach D, Fretwell N, Gehrig C, Graziosi G, Heidorn F et al (1997) Evaluation of Y-chromosomal STRs: a multicentre study. Int J Legal Med 110:125-133 Int J Legal Med (1998) 112: 1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most