Institute for Functional Gene Analytics (IFGA)
Forensics
NGS is in principle a multiplex analysis too, and the DNA sequence bears the length information as well. Therefore DNA profiles can be established using NGS, often identifying additional sequence variants within the amplicons which the current analysis ingnores. In addition, for technical reasons, in NGS analysis amplicon lengths can be kept short for all STR loci, which is not possible in CE-based analysis. Being able to analyse short DNA fragments is of tremendous advantage when analysing degraded DNA.
We have established an NGS-based protocol for the analysis of the 16 forensic STR loci and are currently successfully applying it to DNA extracted from single telogen hairs – a trace type commonly neglected due to the low amount and degraded status of its DNA. Biomedical applications of our protocol may for example consist in chimerism analysis after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.