title: Estimating the number of contributors to a DNA profile.
abstract: The broad topic of this paper is the evaluation of DNA evidence in criminal cases. More specifically, we deal with mixture evidence which refers to cases where there are, or could be, several contributors to a biological stain based on, e.g., blood or semen. The present paper addresses DNA mixtures based on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, i.e., diallelic markers. Based on STR analysis, it is in most cases easy to identify the presence of a mixture since three or four bands will show up with a high probability for at least one locus. Obviously, this will not be the case for diallelic markers and interpreting mixtures will be a great challenge. We address this problem by first approaching the more general problem of estimating the number of contributors to a stain. In addition we discuss how the markers should be selected and how many are required.
authors.affiliation: Biostatistics, Rikshospitalet University Hospital, 0027, Oslo, Norway. thore.egeland@basalmed.uio.no
authors.forename: Thore
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Egeland
authors.forename: Ingvild
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dalen
authors.forename: Petter F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Mostad
mesh_terms: D001826:Body Fluids / Q000737:chemistry; D003415:Crime; D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis*; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods*; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005554:Forensic Medicine / Q000379:methods; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006801:Humans; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers; D004247:DNA