title: Artificial recombination in forensic mtDNA population databases.
abstract: Artificial recombination of two or more mitochondrial DNA fragments from different samples would constitute a serious cause of error in forensic DNA typing, and yet one can demonstrate that such events have happened in the preparation of several published mtDNA databases. Focussed database searches, phylogenetic analysis, and network representations can highlight mosaic patterns and thus pinpoint sample mix-up. Therefore, we suggest that this approach should be applied to data prior to publication in order to uncover such errors in time.
authors.affiliation: Fachbereich Mathematik, Universität Hamburg, Bundesstrasse 55, 20146 Hamburg, Germany. bandelt@math.uni-hamburg.de
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Bandelt
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Salas
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lutz-Bonengel
mesh_terms: D016172:DNA Fingerprinting / Q000592:standards; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005554:Forensic Medicine; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D011786:Quality Control; D011995:Recombination, Genetic
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial