A REPORT OF THE 1995 AND 1996 PATERNITY TESTING WORKSHOPS OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORKING GROUP OF THE INTERNATIONAL-SOCIETY-FOR-FORENSIC-HEMOGENETICS

We report the results of the 1995 and 1996 Paternity Testing Workshops of the English Speaking Working Group of the International Society fo r Forensic Haemogenetics. In 1995, 18 laboratories participated and in 1996, 21 laboratories participated. Each year, blood samples from thr ee persons (child, mother and alleged father) were sent to participati ng laboratories which performed paternity testing according to their u sual protocols. The results and answers to questionnaires concerning m ethods were compiled and are presented in this report. From the questi onnaires, a general tendency to a more frequent use of polymerase chai n reaction (PCR) based methods was seen. In 1996, 62% of the laborator ies used PCR based methods. Ten per cent of the laboratories used only PCR based methods. The remaining 90% of the laboratories performed re striction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) investigations of variab le numbers of tandem repeat (VNTR) loci with single locus probes (SLPs ) either alone or in combination with PCR based typing, multi locus pr obing, classical systems (ABO etc.), or serological HLA typing. In 199 6, typing with classical systems was used in 29% of the laboratories. The majority of the laboratories performed RFLP typing of VNTR loci us ing very similar methods. The results and the inter-laboratory variati ons of the measured lengths of the DNA-fragments of the VNTR legions D 2S44, D7S21, D7S22, and D12S11 of the trios were analysed. The overall coefficient of variation was 2.15% in 1995 and 1.43% in 1996. During the period 1991-1996, the inter-laboratory variation has decreased, mo st probably due to the fact that the methods have now been optimised a nd the majority of the participating laboratories have adopted the sta ndardised method fur RFLP typing with SLPs which was agreed upon for i nvestigations in crime cases by the European DNA Profiling Group. In 1 996, eight laboratories reported the results of PCR based typing of th e short tandem repeat (STR) locus HumTH01, six laboratories reported r esults of HumVWA31A typing, and five laboratories reported the results of typing of the STR locus HumF13A1 and the VNTR locus D1S80. Thr res ults were concordant although the nomenclature was slightly inconsiste nt concerning the classification of an irregular repeat of the HumTH01 system. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.