Species identification by means of pyrosequencing the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene

The aim of this study was to develop a new method for species identification based on the analysis of a very short nucleotide sequence. For this reason, the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene, together with the new method of pyrosequencing, was used. The detection of only 20 nucleotides, following the sequencing primer within a 149-bp fragment by pyrosequencing, was sufficient to identify the biological origin of the samples by alignment with a reference sequence database. A case example with a piece of skin is presented, and the question whether this piece of skin came from a missing wife or from an animal could be answered.