Coding region SNP analysis to enhance dog mtDNA discrimination power in forensic casework

The high population frequencies of three control region haplotypes contribute to the low discrimination power of the dog mtDNA control region. It also diminishes the evidential power of a match with one of these haplotypes in forensic casework. A mitochondrial genome study of 214 Belgian dogs suggested 26 polymorphic coding region sites that successfully resolved dogs with the three most frequent control region haplotypes. In this study, three SNP assays were developed to determine the identity of the 26 informative sites. The control region of 132 newly sampled dogs was sequenced and added to the study of 214 dogs. The assays were applied to 58 dogs of the haplotypes of interest, which confirmed their suitability for enhancing dog mtDNA discrimination power. In the Belgian population study of 346 dogs, the set of 26 sites divided the dogs into 25 clusters of mtGenome sequences with substantially lower population frequency estimates than their control region sequences. In case of a match with one of the three control region haplotypes, using these three SNP assays in conjunction with control region sequencing would augment the exclusion probability of dog mtDNA analysis from 92.9% to 97.0%.