ABSTRACT
All types of error in forensic casework are potentially very serious, and the primary Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) data, its recording and interpretation must therefore be of the highest quality. The technique of multilocus minisatellite fingerprinting was developed by Alec Jeffreys in 1984, and rapidly became established as a highly effective means of distinguishing between DNA samples from different individuals, and reliably establishing family relationships. The probe hybridizes to a set of minisatellites in the genomic DNA contained in restriction fragments whose sizes differ because of variation in the numbers of repeat units. Forensic DNA databases seem certain to increase in size. DNA profiles based on a set of autosomal microsatellites owe their enormous variability to three processes: mutation, which generates new alleles, and independent chromosomal assortment and recombination, which together reassort them each generation. The microsatellite markers chosen for individual identification were selected on the basis of their high heterogeneity in several population samples.
