X-InDels efficacy evaluation in a critical samples paternity case: A Spanish Civil War case from the memorial of the camposines (Tarragona, Spain)

Abstract

The Memorial of the Camposines (la Fatarella, Tarragona, Spain) consists in a place that honours all combatants of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), without distinction of sides. The site was included in the research carried out by the multidisciplinary team coordinated by the program of the General Directorate of Democratic Memory, Generalitat of Catalonia, Spain, for the identification of the victims of the Spanish Civil War. The case investigated on the present study consisted on a presumable paternity. To accomplish the study of the presumptive father critical samples, one of the combatants found on the Memorial, two bone samples were selected - a petrous portion of left temporal bone, and a condyle of foramen magnum, both fractured and at a very bad stage of conservation. After a specific DNA extraction for critical bone sample, the next step was an autosomal and Y-chromosome analysis, trying to find a possible coincidence with any possible familiar, from the familial database. A potential match was found, indicating a possible living daughter. However, between both autosomal profiles one Mendelian incompatibility was detected, and also several allelic dropout phenomena in the presumptive father’s profile. Therefore, samples were analysed for a 32 X-chromosome Insertion-Deletion (InDel) polymorphisms battery, assessing their ability to solve, or at least complementing autosomal information, in a complex paternity case.It was possible to confirm the efficacy of these 32 X-InDels polymorphisms, by solving undoubtedly the case. Due to the five incompatibilities detected between both X-InDels profiles, it was now possible to discard immediately a possible paternity case.