Population Genetics of SNPs for Forensic Purposes. Final Report

摘要

Some SNPs show little allele frequency variation among populations while remaining highly informative. Such SNPs represent a potentially useful supplemental resource for individual identification in forensics especially when considered in light of several advantageous characteristics of SNPs generally compared to STRPs. Our specific goal was to identify panels of SNP markers (1) with globally low Fst and high average heterozygosity and (2) with globally high Fst and at least moderate average heterozygosity. The first of those panels would provide exclusion probabilities (or match probabilities) for individual identification with especially low dependence on ancestry. The second panel would provide highly accurate specificity of biological ancestry for forensic investigation. We have identified a sufficient number of SNPs for individual identification (IISNPs) using our unique collection of cell lines on population samples from around the world. We initially describe an efficient strategy for identifying and characterizing SNPs useful for individual identification.