Automated DNA extraction of single dog hairs without roots for mitochondrial DNA analysis

Dogs are intensely integrated in human social life and their shed hairs can play a major role in forensic investigations. The overall aim of this study was to validate a semi-automated extraction method for mitochondrial DNA analysis of telogenic dog hairs. Extracted DNA was amplified with a 95% success rate from 43 samples using two new experimental designs in which the mitochondrial control region was amplified as a single large (± 1260 bp) amplicon or as two individual amplicons (HV1 and HV2; ± 650 and 350 bp) with tailed-primers. The results prove that the extraction of dog hair mitochondrial DNA can easily be automated to provide sufficient DNA yield for the amplification of a forensically useful long mitochondrial DNA fragment or alternatively two short fragments with minimal loss of sequence in case of degraded samples.