Differential pre-amplification of STR loci for fragmented forensic DNA profiling

DNA profiling of short tandem repeats (STR) has been successfully used for the identification of individuals in forensic samples, accidents and natural disasters. However, STR profiling of DNA isolated from old crime scenes and damaged biological samples is difficult due to DNA degradation and fragmentation. Here, we show that pre-amplification of STR loci using biotinylated primers for the STR loci is an efficient strategy to obtain STR profiling results from fragmented forensic samples. Analysis of STR loci with longer amplicon sizes is generally hampered, since these relatively long loci are vulnerable to DNA fragmentation. This problem was overcome by using reduced or increased primer concentrations for loci with shorter or longer amplicon sizes, respectively, in our pre-amplification strategy. In addition, pre-amplification of STR loci into two groups of short or long amplicon size increases the efficiency of STR profiling from highly fragmented forensic DNA samples. Therefore, differential pre-amplification of STR loci is an effective way to obtain DNA profiling results from fragmented forensic samples.