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Letter to the Editor| Volume 13, e13-e15, November 2014

Genetic and ethnohistoric evidence suggest current Native American population datasets in the FBI's CODIS Database Are Not Sufficiently Representative

  • Sree Kanthaswamy
    Correspondence
    Corresponding author at: Molecular Anthropology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
    Affiliations
    Department of Environmental Toxicology

    Molecular Anthropology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, 95616, USA
    Search for articles by this author
  • David G. Smith
    Affiliations
    Molecular Anthropology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of California Davis, CA, 95616, USA
    Search for articles by this author
      Thirteen CODIS STR loci are required for any DNA profile entry into the national level of the US DNA database [
      • Budowle B.
      • Moretti T.
      • Niezgoda S.
      • Brown B.
      CODIS and PCR-based short tandem repeat loci: law enforcement tools.
      ]. These loci are highly informative and particularly suited for direct profile comparisons (i.e., single source and mixtures) and indirect profile comparisons of related individuals (i.e., kinship). With these loci, random match probabilities of 1 in 100 trillion can be routinely attained [
      • Budowle B.
      • Moretti T.
      • Niezgoda S.
      • Brown B.
      CODIS and PCR-based short tandem repeat loci: law enforcement tools.
      ]. These estimates are based on population comparison databases that comprise major US population groups including Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans [
      • Butler J.M.
      • Schoske R.
      • Vallone P.M.
      • Redman J.W.
      • Kline M.C.
      Allele frequencies for 15 autosomal STR loci on US Caucasian African American, and Hispanic populations.
      ], which very likely exhibit genotype frequencies that are different from those in Native American populations [
      • Chakraborty R.
      • Stivers D.N.
      • Su B.
      • Zhong Y.
      • Budowle B.
      The utility of short tandem repeat loci beyond human identification: implications for development of new DNA typing systems.
      ].

      Keywords

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