Evaluation of New STR Markers for Forensic Analysis: Final Progress Report

The report characterized a set of ethnically and geographically diverse human populations with respect to the occurrence and frequency of alleles at STR loci representing a large fraction of the human genome and examined the generality of fit of genotypes to HWE and allelic independence across the studied loci. The objective was to generate worldwide databases of allele frequencies at these loci, obtain indirect estimates of mutation rates from population-locus contrasts, and develop a panel of STR markers suitable for individual identification and parentage testing. The study analyzed DNA samples from 19 ethnically distinct populations belonging to five major continental populations: African, Caucasian, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander. The study characterized a set of 54 unlinked tri- and tetranucleotide loci distributed over all of the autosomal chromosomes. The study’s most significant achievement was characterization of genetic variation at nine CODIS loci, because of their direct relevance in forensic analysis. Tables, references