Forensic analysis of mitochondrial control region DNA from single cat hairs

Although different parts of the mitochondrial control region (CR) have been described as forensically relevant, factors such as geographical location and breed may influence their forensic value. Analysis of multiple CR regions has been shown to increase the evidential value for certain populations, but due to large amplicon size, PCR success could be influenced when single shed hairs are used for analysis. A new strategy was developed to circumvent amplification of the repeat element RS2 without dramatically decreasing the number of potentially informative nucleotide positions sequenced bidirectional. DNA-extracts of 40 shed cat hairs were typed to compare the PCR success of this duplex strategy to the single amplicon approach. Amplicons were obtained from all tested hairs using the duplex strategy, compared to 60% using the single amplicon, illustrating the applicability of this strategy to case type samples. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.