Forensic DNA analysis in Portugal

Abstract

Only 10 million out of 15 million Portuguese citizens are actually living in the 92,082 2 km of Portuguese territory, including the Azores and Madeira archipelagos. The other 5 million are scattered all over the world, namely in other European countries, such as France and Germany. In Portugal, there is no specific legislation on DNA analysis and all the forensic genetic casework (paternity tests and criminal stain identifications) is done in the Forensic Biology Services of the country’s three Institutes of Legal Medicine (Coimbra, Oporto and Lisbon) and in the Scientific Police Laboratory of Lisbon (for criminal stains only). The process is initiated solely by court solicitation from one of the three forensic medical areas: central, northern and southern. During the last two decades the amount of forensic genetic analysis in Portugal has steadily increased. In 1995, 1150 paternity tests and over 500 criminal typing cases were performed. We strongly believe that the high number of paternity tests, when compared with other countries such as neighbouring Spain, must be related to the demands of Portuguese th st family law, namely the articles 1864 and 1801 of the civil law code. The first article states that whenever a birth registration only refers to the mother, a full certificate of the registration must be sent to the court in order to officially investigate the father’s identity. The second one specifically makes reference to blood tests as a means of evidence. All laboratories involved in paternity testing have been gradually replacing the classical markers (red blood cells’ antigens, protein and enzyme polymorphisms) with PCR DNA typing. This is also the technology used in criminal traces typing, namely STRs, which have been included on collaborative exercises by the EDNAP (European DNA Profiling Group) and the GEP-ISFH (Spanish and Portuguese Working Group of the ISFH) [1–3]. To sum up, here are the DNA loci currently used in our laboratories: • Coding DNA: