The extended variation in mtDNA
among individuals has been studied for
forensic analysis using mainly Sanger
sequencing. Sanger sequencing analysis
is an elegant but labor-intensive method
involving multiple steps and an electrophoretic slab-gel separation of DNA
fragments. Methods that are less labor
intensive have been developed, such as
sequence-specific oligonucleotide
(SSO) analysis hybridization (29),
minisequencing (16), and immobilized
SSO probes (22). These methods are
easy to perform in a few hours, but their
discrimination power is substantially
lower in comparison with a sequence
analysis. These systems are designed
for analysis of 12 to 23 of the most
polymorphic sites in the mtDNA Dloop rather than the full sequence result ing in a lower probability of a random
match. Consequently, these systems are
used mostly for pre-screening to exclude mtDNA identity between sam ples. Whenever the pre-screening analysis indicates an mtDNA match between