Abstract
The identification of dog hair through mtDNA analysis has become increasingly important in the last 15 years, as it can provide associative evidence connecting victims and suspects. The evidential value of an mtDNA match between dog hair and its potential donor is determined by the random match probability of the haplotype. This probability is based on the haplotype’s population frequency estimate. Consequently, implementing a population study representative of the population relevant to the forensic case is vital to the correct evaluation of the evidence. This paper reviews numerous published dog mtDNA studies and shows that many of these studies vary widely in sampling strategies and data quality. Therefore, several features influencing the representativeness of a population sample are discussed. Moreover, recommendations are provided on how to set up a dog mtDNA population study and how to decide whether or not to include published data. This review emphasizes the need for improved dog mtDNA population data for forensic purposes, including targeting the entire mitochondrial genome. In particular, the creation of a publicly available database of qualitative dog mtDNA population studies would improve the genetic analysis of dog traces in forensic casework.
Highlights
Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are common and widespread in human society and dog trace material is frequently encountered in forensic casework
Determining whether a particular dog could have donated the hair found at a crime scene may provide associative evidenceconnecting victims and suspects
As for human traces, this type of analysis focuses on the non-coding control region or D-loop (Wilson et al 1993, Holland and Parsons 1999), which in dog mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comprises about 1200 bp consisting of two hypervariable regions (HV-I and HV-II) separated by a Variable Number of Tandem Repeats (VNTR) region (Figure 1)
Summary
Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are common and widespread in human society and dog trace material is frequently encountered in forensic casework. These standards include: (1) providing a good documentation of the sampling strategy and a detailed description of the sampled individuals and the population, (2) avoiding sampling bias due to population substructure, (3) applying high quality mtDNA sequencing protocols and describing them clearly, (4) avoiding errors by handling and transferring data electronically, (5) performing quality checks of the generated data by e.g. haplogrouping or quasi-median network analysis and (6) making the full sequences publicly and electronically available preferably through either GenBank (Benson et al 2013) or a forensic database such as EMPOP (Parson and Bandelt 2007, Parson and Dür 2007, Carracedo et al 2010, Parson and Roewer 2010, Carracedo et al 2013) These standards will be discussed here in relation to dog mtDNA studies. More detailed guidelines are lacking, the main issue with
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