Human sex determination using multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR)

A sex determination method has been developed using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which involved the amplification of the sex-determining region Y (SRY) gene and the amplification of the HLA-DQa gene as an internal control. This method, which can be applied to old and degraded DNA samples, allowed confident sexing of biological samples producing readily identifiable PCR products using two sets of primers in the one PCR reaction. The PCR products were short DNA sequences of 139bp and 239/242bp for the SRY and HLA-DQa regions respectively. The application of this method in forensic science will allow determination of the gender of perpetrators of crimes involving biological materials.