The properties of human DNA fingerprints produced by polymeric monocore probes (PMC probes)

Abstract

The properties of human DNA fingerprints detected by multilocus polymeric monocore probes (PMC probes) have been investigated. The PMC probes were produced by the polymerase chain reaction with two partly complementary oligonucleotides homologous to various minisatellite or microsatellite core sequences (Ijdo J, Wells RA, Baldini A, Reeders ST. Nucleic Acids Res 1991;19:4780). It has been shown that these probes possess increased sensitivity, they detect considerably more hypervariable fragments in genomic DNA thus exhibiting advantages over the corresponding oligonucleotides and natural polycore minisatellite probes. Variation in the DNA fingerprints of different individuals produced by these probes indicates that the probability of accidental identity is very low (<10⁻¹²). According to the data of cross-hybridization with PMC probes of various specificity, several distinct families can be distinguished among G-rich hypervariable sequences of the human genome.