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                            Funding & Awards
 Enhancing Mixture Interpretation with Highly Informative STRs
Award Information
Awardee
              University of North Texas Health Science Center
Award #
              2015-DN-BX-K067
Funding Category
              Competitive
Location
                    Fort Worth, TX
Awardee County
              Tarrant
Congressional District
              12
Status
              Closed
Funding First Awarded
              2015
Total funding (to date)
              $585,415
Original Solicitation
              NIJ FY 15 Research and Development in Forensic Science for Criminal Justice Purposes
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2015, $585,415)
As submitted by the proposer: 

Mixture evidence is increasing and far more complex cases are being encountered. Unfortunately, a portion of these complex mixtures are being deemed inconclusive or are being assessed with low statistical strength. Statistics packages have been developed and are being developed to address complex mixtures; but even these have limitations. As with any DNA typing system statistical methods cannot make a limited DNA profile better than it is. There is a need to develop analytical systems that make mixtures less complicated. Analytical and statistical approaches can work together to enhance mixture interpretation capabilities. Massively parallel sequencing (MPS) could facilitate mixture interpretation and simplify some complex mixtures. The value of MPS is its high throughput and the ability to provide sequence variation in addition to the nominal length of STR alleles, thereby, increasing the power of discrimination and potentially resolving contributors in mixtures that share alleles or share an allele and stutter product. We propose to identify additional sequence variation in STRs to facilitate mixture interpretation. The studies include describing allele sequence variation of those STRs of the CODIS core set and generally used Y STRs. The analyses include 1) identification and description of the type of variation(s) that exist at these STRs; 2) population studies to determine the frequency of the novel alleles; and 3) determination of the degree of retaining the variation observed in a true allele in its accompanying stutter product. Then, novel autosomal STRs and Y-STRs will be sought to expand markers that would better facilitate mixture interpretation. There is a wealth of STRs, available on the internet, yet to be screened for such variation. While identifying those markers with more alleles based on length only would seem sufficient, markers containing intra-allelic SNPs that display similar high heterozygosity are more desirable for forensic purposes. For the former, the greater number of alleles translates into potential heterozygotes where a large size difference of alleles of heterozygotes can result in substantial preferential amplification of the smaller sized allele. A similarly discriminating locus due to the presence of intra-allelic SNPs could have fewer large difference size heterozygote alleles and thus demonstrate less preferential amplification. Lastly, the software STRait Razor v 2.0 has been a tool that has facilitated worldwide STR typing from MPS data. STRait Razor v 3.0 will integrate flanking region SNP variation using associated variant-calling software, be validated, and made available freely.

This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law.

ca/ncf



  
Grant-Funded Publications
        
                      Assessing sequence variation and genetic diversity of currently untapped Y-STR loci
                  Allele frequencies and minor contributor match statistic convergence using simulated population replicates
                  Exploring New Short Tandem Repeat Markers for DNA Mixture Deconvolution
                  Compound Stutter in D2S1338 and D12S391
                  Expanding Beyond the Current Core STR Loci: An Exploration of 73 STR Markers With Increased Diversity for Enhanced DNA Mixture Deconvolution
                  Potential Highly Polymorphic Short Tandem Repeat Markers for Enhanced Forensic Identity Testing
                  Increasing the Discrimination Power of Ancestry- and Identity-Informative SNP Loci Within the ForenSeg
                  Insertion Within the Flanking Region of the D10S1237 Locus
                  Enhancing Mixture Interpretation With Highly Informative STRs
                  "The devil's in the detail": Release of an expanded, enhanced and dynamically revised forensic STR Sequence Guide
                  STRSeq: A Catalog of Sequence Diversity at Human Identification Short Tandem Repeat Loci
                  Fast STR Allele Identification With STRait Razor 3.0
                  Population and Performance Analyses of Four Major Populations with Illumina's FGx Forensic Genomics System
                  STRait Razor v2s: Advancing Sequence-based STR Allele Reporting and Beyond to Other Marker Systems
                  Flanking Variation Influences Rates of Stutter in Simple Repeats
                  Technique for Setting Analytical Thresholds in Massively Parallel Sequencing-based Forensic DNA Analysis
                  Characterization of Genetic Sequence Variation of 58 STR Loci in Four Major Population Groups

  
Date Created: September 21, 2015
    
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