Highlights
- •Pet hair has a demonstrated value in resolving legal issues.
- •Mitochondrial CR databases are highly valuable and have been developed for the cat.
- •95% mtDNA CR type saturation is achieved with 50 random samples for most populations.
- •Fewer cats are needed for mtDNA CR database practical saturation than humans or dogs.
- •Cats have many required forensic databases and tools for forensic applications.
Abstract
Pet hair has a demonstrated value in resolving legal issues. Cat hair is chronically
shed and it is difficult to leave a home with cats without some level of secondary
transfer. The power of cat hair as an evidentiary resource may be underused because
representative genetic databases are not available for exclusionary purposes. Mitochondrial
control region databases are highly valuable for hair analyses and have been developed
for the cat. In a representative worldwide data set, 83% of domestic cat mitotypes
belong to one of twelve major types. Of the remaining 17%, 7.5% are unique within
the published 1394 sample database. The current research evaluates the sample size
necessary to establish a representative population for forensic comparison of the
mitochondrial control region for the domestic cat. For most worldwide populations,
randomly sampling 50 unrelated local individuals will achieve saturation at 95%. The
99% saturation is achieved by randomly sampling 60–170 cats, depending on the numbers
of mitotypes available in the population at large. Likely due to the recent domestication
of the cat and minimal localized population substructure, fewer cats are needed to
meet mitochondria DNA control region database practical saturation than for humans
or dogs. Coupled with the available worldwide feline control region database of nearly
1400 cats, minimal local sampling will be required to establish an appropriate comparative
representative database and achieve significant exclusionary power.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 29, 2014
Accepted:
November 22,
2014
Received in revised form:
October 28,
2014
Received:
May 21,
2014
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
