NEW REFERENCE ALLELIC LADDERS TO IMPROVE ALLELIC DESIGNATION IN A MULTIPLEX STR SYSTEM

This paper reports the composition of a new reference allelic ladder m ixture for use with a multiplex DNA profiling system consisting of six short tandem repeat loci. The loci included in this mixture are HUMTH 01, D21S11, D18S51, D8S1179, HUMVWAF31/A, HUMFIBRA/FGA and an amelogen in sex test. Sequence analysis of individual ladder alleles was carrie d out and allelic designations made in accordance with the recommendat ions of the International Society of Forensic Haemogenetics (1992; 199 4). A series of rare alleles which increase the range of alleles previ ously reported were identified. By including some of the rare alleles into the ladder marker system, we have significantly improved the abil ity to identify new alleles in unknown samples.