[A comparison of the Bluestar and luminol effectiveness in bloodstain detection].

The objective of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of two chemical agents--Bluestar and luminol--in detection of bloodstains. The experiments were performed to test for bloodstain detection sensitivity, chemical stability and to investigate the effect of both reagents on DNA typing. During this study, the authors prepared serial dilutions (1:2 to 1:10 000 000) of fresh blood, as well as dilutions of 25-year old blood on Whatman 3MM blotting paper.

[Phylogeographic approach in the interpretation of mitochondrial DNA sequencing results in forensics].

In recent years, forensic mitochondrial DNA analysis has been undertaken from an evolutionary perspective. In particular, the phylogeographic approach based on a phylogenetic analysis of the spatial distribution of mitochondrial haplotypes and haplogroups appears to be a useful tool in the interpretation of identification cases. In this study, the phylogeographic approach has been employed in the analysis of three difficult forensic cases, where single nucleotide, homoplasmic differences were found between the reference and evidentiary haplotypes.

[Correlations between haplogroup membership and Y-STR haplotype as a potential measure of quality control in forensic examinations].

A correlation between particular Y-STR alleles from the so-called "minimal haplotype" and haplogroup membership of the Y chromosome was tested. We collected 146 Y chromosomes from haplogroups R1*, R1a1* and 1* and estimated the frequency of Y-STR alleles in each haplogroup. We then used different algorithms to assign a haplogroup to a haplotype, and tested their accuracy.

Low variability of the POLG (CAG)n repeat in north Eurasian populations.

We investigated the frequency of different repeat-length alleles of the trinucleotide CAG microsatellite repeat in the coding sequence of the nuclear gene for the catalytic subunit of mitochondrial DNA polymerase gamma (POLG) in 12 ethnic groups from northern Eurasia. The population sample consisted of 1,330 individuals from 3 large geographic areas: Europe, Southwest Asia, and Siberia/East Asia. We found that the 10-repeat allele of the POLG gene is the most frequent in all analyzed populations, with a frequency of 88-96%.