The Development and Use of Internal Amplification Controls (IACs) with DNA Profiling Kits for Forensic DNA Analysis

Abstract

Biological samples recovered for forensic investigations are often degraded and/or have low amounts of DNA; in addition, in some instances the samples may be contaminated with chemicals that can act as PCR inhibitors. As a consequence this can make interpretation of the results challenging with the possibility of having partial profiles and false negative results. Because of the impact of DNA analysis on forensic investigations, it is important to monitor the process of DNA profiling, in particular the amplification reaction. In this chapter we describe a method for the in-house generation and use of internal amplification controls (IACs) with DNA profiling kits to monitor the success of the PCR proces. In the example we show the use of the SGM Plus® kit. These controls can also be used to aid the interpretation of the DNA profile.

Assessment of QIAGEN™ Investigator® 24plex GO! kit workflow for autosomal STR profiling of forensic reference samples

“…is also supplied with two pairs of primers targeting artificial templates as quality sensors (QS 1 and QS 2). The inclusion of these QS primer mixes helps to determine the effectiveness of the PCR reaction and to indicate the nature and quantity of the DNA template (Zahra and Goodwin 2016;QIAGEN 2018). Here, QS 1 will show stable amplification even in the presence of extremely high inhibitor concentrations.…”