Abstract
The recovery of genetic information from highly degraded or minute amount of biological samples needs special approaches together with conventional STR multiplex assays. In this respect, the mini-STR technology is considered to be remarkable for its capacity to decrease the rate of failures and inconclusive results in forensic casework. By using miniSTRs, the PCR efficiency is significantly improved as shorter PCR amplicons are generated with STR primers located closer to the repeat regions. In this article we aimed to present several practical considerations regarding the miniSTR genotyping for challenging forensic samples. Looking for a robust protocol to re-investigate some of our cases with inconclusive or no typing results we studied the efficiency of a miniSTR approach. We report by comparison our results obtained with a commercial miniSTR multiplex assay on samples previously tested with two different 16 STR commercial kits. Our conclusion is definitely in favor of including in the routine protocol the miniSTR assay as it was able to improve the results, providing better or even complete DNA profiles for the difficult samples where the conventional STR kits failed.
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