[Allele-specific PCR and its application in forensic science]

Allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (AS-PCR) is a technique based on allele-specific primers, which can be used to analyze single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) effectively including the transition, transversion and insertion/deletion polymorphism and has been exploited in the study of diseases research, molecular diagnosis, and forensic biological evidence. The article systematically reviews the principle, the detection methods, improvement of AS-PCR, and its research updates in the fields of autosome, Y chromosome and mitochondrial SNP, as well as its application in forensic science.