Sex determination of forensic samples by simultaneous PCR amplification of alpha-satellite DNA from both the X and Y chromosomes.

Simultaneous amplification of the alphoid repeated sequences clustered in the centromeric regions of both the human X and Y chromosome was performed. Modification and improvement of the polymerase chain reaction conditions resulted in detectable amplification products from less than 1 ng of genomic DNA template. Sex determination was successful in various types of biological materials of forensic interest as bloodstains, vaginal swabs, cigarette butts, bones, and hair roots. The authors suggest that the coamplification of both X- and Y-sequences in a unique reaction mixture is a fast, human specific, sensitive and reliable method providing internal reaction control and sex determination in DNA from a variety of different types of specimens as well as from specimens of limited amount, thus, being very useful in forensic research for the analysis of biological evidence.