Haptoglobin typing of bloodstains using horizontal discontinuous polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.

A horizontal electrophoresis method using a discontinuous polyacrylamide gel to identify haptoglobin polymorphs is described. Improvements over the traditional vertical gel method include less sample required, easy gel preparation, and shortened run time. Additionally, vertical electrophoresis equipment, which can be technically challenging, is not needed. Caucasian, Black and Hispanic databases, each created from 100 autopsy blood samples from the New York City Medical Examiner's Office, are also presented.