ABSTRACT
Mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) typing is valuable for analyzing challenging samples and providing investigative leads in missing persons cases, mass disaster cases, cold cases, and historic investigations; evaluating mother-child pairs; and differentiating monozygotic twins. Mitochondrial DNA typing has been performed in cases since 1996. The mitochondrion is an unusual organelle that possesses its own genome outside of the cell’s nucleus. A DNA sample with no detectable copies of genomic DNA can have over 20,000 copies of mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA typing can be used to determine if bones and teeth derive from the same or a different skeleton or family. The mitochondrial chromosome is largely conserved as it contains genes that code for proteins essential for metabolism; mutations can lead to some diseases. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) using kits and methods for control region and whole mitochondrial chromosome sequencing offer more discrimination power than previous methods.
