Multilocus DNA fingerprinting in paternity analysis: a Chilean experience

DNA polymorphism is very useful in paternity analysis. The present paper de scribes paternity studies done using DNA profiles obtained with the (CAC)(5 ) probe. All of the subjects studied were involved in nonjudicial cases of paternity. Genomic DNA digested with HaeIII was run on agarose gels and hyb ridized in the gel with the (CAC)(5) probe labeled with P-32. The mean numb er of bands larger than the 4.3 kb per individual was 16.1. The mean propor tion of bands shared among unrelated individuals was 0.08 and the mean numb er of test bands was 7.1. This corresponded to an exclusion probability gre ater than 0.999999. Paternity was excluded in 34.5% of the cases. The mutat ion frequency estimated from non-excluded cases was 0.01143 bands per child . In these cases, the paternity was confirmed by a locus-specific analysis of eight independent PCR-based loci. The paternity index was computed in al l non-excluded cases. It can be concluded that this method is a powerful an d inexpensive alternative to solve paternity doubts.