RMNE calculation in forensic profiles with a high number of loci and allelic drop-outs using polynomial expansion

Technological progress made it possible to obtain increasing amounts of forensic genetic information from increasingly challenging samples. The current capillary electrophoresis (CE) based megaplexes offer 23 autosomal Short Tandem Repeats (STRs) supplemented with additional Y-STRs [ 1 Ensenberger M.G. et al. Developmental validation of the PowerPlex® Fusion 6C system. Forensic Sci. Int. Genet. 2016; 21: 134-144 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (65) Google Scholar , 2 Wang D.Y. et al. Developmental validation of the GlobalFiler(®) Express PCR Amplification Kit: a 6-dye multiplex assay for the direct amplification of reference samples. Forensic Sci. Int. Genet. 2015; 19: 148-155 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (66) Google Scholar ]. Massively Parallel Sequencing (MPS) based assays enable the simultaneous analysis of more than 200 loci. Profiles from degraded, low template samples can show a number of allelic drop-outs (DOs) which tends to increase with an increased number of analyzed loci. Calculating the evidential value of such profiles is challenging.