The efficiency of multilocus DNA fingerprint probes for individualization and establishment of family relationships, determined from extensive casework

The properties of human DNA fingerprints detected by multilocus minisatellite probes 33.6 and 33.15 have been investigated in 36 large sibships and in 1,702 Caucasian paternity cases involving the analysis of over 180,000 DNA fingerprint bands. The degree of overlap of minisatellite loci detected by these two probes is shown to be negligible (~1%), and the resulting DNA fingerprints are therefore derived from independent sets of hypervariable loci. The level of allelism and linkage between different hypervariable DNA fragments scored with these probes is also low, implying substantial statistical independence of DNA fragments. Variation between the DNA fingerprints of different individuals indicates that the probability of chance identity is very low (<